AbstractIt was found that a surface acoustic wave microsensor is highly sensitive in detecting the physical and chemical changes of the medium on the vibrating surface in real time. Hence, microsensors are used in many applications. There are already several types of surface acoustic wave microsensors with their differences based on vibration and wave modes. New types of sensors are proposed herein and new findings and new applications are reported. The present level of development of surface acoustic wave microsensors is described and these sensors are compared, discussed, and evaluated.Fundamental characteristics are then presented for the shear‐surface acoustic wave (SH‐SAW) microsensors using a 36° rotated Y‐plate X‐propagation LiTaO3 studied by the authors. It is shown that this sensor has many applications. Further, if several SH‐SAW sensors with different frequencies are used, a high recognition rate can be obtained even for liquid samples that cannot be recognized by human perception. The example used here is 13 types of whiskey.