I feel like ever since I started vaping (December, so not that long ago) I am in a continual taste-crisis. Though not so much taste-bud crisis, but olfactory crisis - and that affects taste too.
I used to half-jokingly said that I smoked so much because I have an over-active sense of smell. Now when I am smoking much less (but still around 10/day) I've discovered that that was no joke. I am honestly scared about what will happen when/if I stop completely.
The thing I have problems with right now (apart from the normal "random smells in the mall or the tram") is that when I've been mixing or testing or just plain vaping something and trying to be observant (so I can mix much better stuff in the future), I sometimes can't shake the smells. So I sit in the tram and someone comes in, and they are wearing a cologne or something that has some component that is similar to something I just mixed or tasted. And I start anxiously searching for my PV in my pocket, convinced that it is leaking and I am stinking up the whole tram...*
I also get "phantom scents" now and again, usually something I have been tasting or mixing - but those are usually easier to deal with, because they are so clearly just a repeat of what I actually did sniff a few hours ago, so I usually just dismiss that with the thought that I must still have had a few molecules on my finger tips or on my cloth hanky or something.
But the soaps etc that other people use that happen to share some really small aspect of something I've mixed (various tobacco-menthol blends have loads of teeny tiny notes that seem to be not that uncommon in some families of scents), that can send me into a panic.
When it comes to actual tastebuds, I don't know. I tend to have some problems with sweet and bitter, in that my sensitivity to them can vary a great deal. But I haven't noticed it getting any worse or better, it just is what it is.
*ETA: I have asked other people about this, and from the answers I get it seems to be that it is just my nose that is over-active. After last week's folk dance practice, when I thought it wasn't so bad, I made an off hand remark to my friend about someone using a soap or something that had a similar note to one of my blends, and how it wasn't bad and it was a good thing I had been able to identify it so quickly (instead of worrying about my PV leaking in my pocket, 10 meters away). My friend of course looked at me like I had two heads, she had danced as close to this person as I had, and hadn't noticed it at all. So it IS just me.
I don't understand how people working with scents or tastes, developing the ability to really discern subtle notes etc, are able to live in the normal world without going crazy.
Vape Happy!
