Did you ever lick a metal pencil sharpener when you were a kid and wondered why it tasted funny but only in certain parts? Finally - here is the answer.
"I know the answer and actually it was much better on pencil sharpeners: it is bimetallic ELECTROLYSIS of the TONGUE… the sharpener blade is one alloy and the body (or the screws) are another, and when you place the two metals in a conducting liquid viz spit, the electrons travel from the cathode to the anode (or vice versa, or anyway something like that: google for correct direction) => the fizziness is CURRENT FLOW hurrah!!
why it happened on those tabs i don’t know… maybe they were bimetallic too, but i can’t see how: it was less powerful (actually possibly doing a proustian madeleine here: viz the TASTE of the tabs was the same as the TASTE of one of the metals in a pencil sharpener, but the fizziness was only on the pencil sharpener, but my memory is conflating and tranferring!!) What would you lick?
I didn’t know that pencil sharpener licking was a thing. In my elementary school days (1960’s) in Winterpeg it was tricking kids into licking the flagpole or bike rack in the wintertime. A whole different experience. That and eating Elmers white glue that, at the time, smelled like peppermint.
It seemed like every few weeks in the winter some poor kid (like my brother) would have his tongue stuck to the bike rack at recess and a teacher would have to come out with some warm water to rescue them.
