[puckluck]

Found a pretty good link with an explanation.

http://www.finecooking.com/item/1911...e-drink-better

With all of that, let's think straws vs. no straws. If you were drinking, say, a milkshake without a straw, then you get a big clump all at once. There's not a lot of room in your mouth, and so not much air circulation. Also, the milkshake is pretty cold, so you won't get much going on by way of nerve impulses or VOCs.

If you drank the same milkshake with a straw, then you would just get a little at a time. That small amount of milkshake hits your tongue, which heats the relatively small amount of milkshake rather than being instantly frozen by it. The warmed milkshake lets off VOCs, and also your tongue can maintain its tasty chemical reactions. That, combined with all the air that's flowing through your system as part of the mechanism of sucking liquid through a straw, you have a lot more flavor happening.

And that, in a nutshell, is why some things taste better through a straw