Complete loss of taste is a thing with colds,
Most people don't realize that much of what we think is taste is actually smell. When you lose your sense of smell, you cannot taste many foods at all, or they taste really bad. Coffee is a good example -- it's "taste" is almost all smell. So when someone loses their sense of smell, it's not surprising that they think -- wrongly -- that they have lost their sense of taste as well.
You can still taste a little bit when you have a completely clogged nose, the taste buds still work but you aren't getting the full effect of how the body works.
This was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before, it was quite literally as if you'd hit a switch, and I no longer had taste buds. No taste, no smell. It never did fully come back, although it's limited to certain meats having an off taste and most solvents all smelling the same. For example, I can't tell the difference between kerosene and gasoline anymore except by actually touching the liquid and seeing how it evaporates.
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