We perceive taste when nutrients or other chemical compounds activate specialised taste receptor cells located in our oral cavity, and the sense of taste is believed to have evolved to help our species decide what to eat and how efficiently we digest these.
Smell on the other hand results when the odourants come in contact with olfactory receptors located along superior and middle turbinates and the upper part of nasal septum. From evolution point of view, the sense of smell is believed to have preceded that of taste, since pre-mammals are known to have much larger brain areas associated with smell. Smell is known to have driven most of the early expansion of the brain in proto-mammals and in the last common ancestor of living mammal species.
The interesting aspect is the perceptual confusion in our species. between the senses of smell and taste (together called chemical senses), manifested on one hand in attribution of taste qualities to odours, and on the other the enhancement of taste intensities by odours.
The degree to which an odour smells sweet has been found to be a predictor of the degree to which same odour will enhance or suppress the sweetness of sucrose.
Reference:
1. Nature News 20 May 2011 Last updated at 09:08
2. Current Biology, Volume 23, Issue 9, R409-R418, 6 May 2013
3. Chem. Senses (1999) 24 (6): 627-635. doi: 10.1093/chemse/24.6.627
4. New York Times Book - The Sense of Smell. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/v/vroon-smell.html
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