Although the human perceptual apparatus is biologically given and hence universal, languages differ in how they lexicalize aspects of sensory experience. Within a given language and culture, distinct sensory modalities are often given differential treatment in ways reflecting culturally-specific ideas about, and uses for, the different senses. This paper reports on the Mayan language Tzeltal, as spoken in Tenejapa in southern Mexico. Drawing on data derived from the responses of 13 Tzeltal consultants to a standardized set of elicitation stimuli for different sensory modalities, and from naturally-occurring Tzeltal conversations, I provide an overview of words and constructions used for describing perceptual qualities in six domains: colour, shape, sound, touch, smell, and taste. I then focus on the two domains of colour and taste, where, despite limited sets of basic terms, productive reduplication and compounding processes are used in analogous ways to finely discriminate sensations. For example, although Tzeltal has only five basic colour terms, a number of derived forms specific to colour (e.g., yax-eleltik, sak-likantik, ik'-somsom) modulate the meanings of the these basic terms. Similarly, in the domain of taste there are six basic terms and a limited set of compound forms specific to taste (e.g., chi'-pikpiktik, sik-lo’lo’tik). In the domains of colour and taste, these reduplicated compounds are formed from roots with meanings based in other sensory domains; these are productive cross-modal modifiers. I suggest some ways in which these properties of the Tzeltal language of perception provide insights into the cultural construction of sensory experience in Tenejapa.