What is Umami: The Fifth Taste in the Global Spotlight

Umami has the ability to draw the maximum flavor from ingredients and is an international taste, joining sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. These unique tastes cannot be created by mixing other tastes, and are known as the basic, or primary, tastes. Umami is a general term used mainly for substances combining the amino acid glutamate, and/or the nucleotides inosinate and guanylate, with minerals such as sodium and potassium. Whether something tastes good or not is a comprehensive and subjective evaluation, determined by elements such as taste, aroma, texture, and temperature. This includes other factors, such as appearance, color, and shape, as well as physical condition, surrounding environment, cultural background, and previous experiences. Of these various elements, umami balances with the other basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, and bitter) and plays an important role in determining the deliciousness of a dish.

In scientific terms, umami is defined as the taste of salts combining glutamate, inosinate, or guanylate, as well as sodium ions, such as monosodium glutamate, or potassium ions. Here, except for sections requiring scientific precision, we describe umami as the taste of glutamate, inosinate, and guanylate. Salts of the amino acid aspartate and the nucleotide adenylate are also types of umami substance, which are weaker than glutamate. Succinic acid, which gives shellfish their distinctive taste, has also been identified as another possible umami substance.

The main components of umami are glutamate, inosinate, and guanylate. Glutamate is found in a variety of foods including meat, fish, and vegetables. Inosinate is found in generous quantities in animal-based foods such as meat and fish, while large amounts of guanylate can be found in dried mushroom products such as dried shiitake. We also know that the umami component of food increases as a result of processing, such as ripening and fermentation. Many traditional foods from around the world are excellent sources of umami, including soy sauce and other fermented condiments made from grain, fish sauces such as Thailand’s nam pla and nuoc mam from Vietnam, and cheeses.

It has been scientifically proven that umami is sensed more strongly when glutamate is combined with inosinate or guanylate. This is referred to as umami synergy. People have been capitalizing on umami synergy for centuries, long before this effect was scientifically proven. All over the world, in dishes from soups combining glutamate-rich vegetables and inosinate-rich meat and fish, to the tang of Chinese cuisine extracted from chicken or pork bones and green onions, to Japanese dashi made from kombu (high in glutamate) and katsuobushi (high in inosinate), people have acquired an empirical understanding of umami synergy and applied that knowledge to cooking.

Umami is a delicate, mild, and subtle taste. It is a taste that spreads across the tongue, coating it completely. It is also a persistent and lingering taste, creating a mouthwatering sensation. This is how chefs who have experienced and recognized umami describe its characteristics. Let us take a look at three properties of umami...

Umami helps to reduce salt content in cooking. Although salt can ehance the tast of food, numerous studies and statistics have linked excessive salt intake to many different lifestyle diseases. While drastically reducing salt is good for our bodies, a low-salt diet is difficult to maintain. It has been demonstrated that making use of umami allows salt content to be reduced without compromising taste. In an experiment comparing egg-drop soup prepared according to a standard recipe with a soup made with extra umami, it was found that salt could be reduced in the umami-boosted soup by around 30 percent, with no loss of taste. In a similar manner, some Japanese restaurants are experimenting with serving healthy kaiseki food, which can be savored, especially those on a salt-reduced diet, by focusing on boosting umami in food preparation.