FLUTES

[Michael w6]

No, I do not recall a smell of mold. I cleaned the inside and outside of the head joint with isopropyl as you suggested. This did not solve the problem. The unpleasant taste is noticeable and lingering. Tastes are difficult to describe in words. But the unpleasant taste is certainly there. The only similar example I can think of is plastic cups. My workplace provides plastic promotional drinking cups. If water is in these cups for some while the water takes on a very distinctive and unpleasant taste.
The flute has a similar "plasticky" taste. Very noticeable and persistent.

[Maihcol]

It's possible this may also be Michael's personal reaction to the actual delrin material of the flute, which I've not come across before.

Michael tells me the flute is on the way back to the Irish Flute Store, so I will ask Blayne Chastain, the owner who is himself a fluteplayer and flute teacher, to check it and see what he thinks.

[D Mc]

Personally, I don't understand how you are even able to "taste" a flute. It's not like a whistle that you put in your mouth.

[Michael w6]

I suspect some airborne particles are being inhaled. By what ever means, something is entering my mouth. The taste is distinctly unpleasant, "plasticky" and lingers for some while after I'd stopped playing.

[Loren]

Personally, I don't understand how you are even able to "taste" a flute. It's not like a whistle that you put in your mouth.

When you blow into a flute some of that air rebounds back out of the flute in the area of your face, some of that gets inhaled through the mouth and nose.

Side note, physiologically smell and taste are closely linked, so to a certain extent what you smell you can taste, even if you haven’t put it in your mouth, and vice versa.