What Is Umami? A Concise Guide to the Fifth Taste, According to an Expert In Japanese Cuisine
How to use the term, the history of umami and more.
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Maybe you’ve heard your favorite chef talk about using “umami bombs” to enhance the flavor of dishes or perhaps you know that umami is considered the fifth taste. But what exactly is umami? For more info, we consulted Pascale Yamashita, a recipe developer, food stylist, food photographer and avid food lover based in Japan.
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What Is Umami?
Umami is the fifth taste and stems from the Japanese word umai, meaning delicious. Umami can be used to refer to a food’s savoriness, richness or meatiness.
You can taste umami in foods that have high levels of naturally occurring amino acid glutamate, such as Parmesan cheese, mushrooms or seaweed or its commercially produced counterpart monosodium glutamate (MSG).
“There are two different types of umami in Japanese,” Yamashita explains. “One translates to deliciousness/goodness that the taste brings, written as 旨味or旨み in Kanji characters. The other, written as うま味, literally translates to essence of deliciousness in Japanese, which is also one of the main five tastes we can taste with our tongue: salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami.”
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What Does Umami Taste Like?
Umami taste is usually associated with satisfying or delicious savoriness. Umami taste can be described as brothy, meaty, rich or savory.
“Umami is felt by the surface of the tongue palate unlike some other taste such as saltiness or sweetness that can be felt/tasted most strongly on the tip of the tongue,” Yamashita says. “Furthermore, umami lingers longer even after the food has been swallowed and even triggers more saliva in the mouth that also lingers longer than other tastes so it gives this mild yet longer enjoyment of the taste.”
The History of Umami
“Umami was discovered by a scientist named Dr. Kikunae Ikeda in 1907 who was said to have made this discovery while having his kelp/kombu dashi soup,” Yamashita says. “He proceeded to analyzing and found out that the crystals he extracted were glutamate.”
The popularity of umami began rising in the 1980’s. In 1982, scientists who were interested in researching umami taste founded The Society for Research on Umami Taste. In 1985, they held the first Umami International Symposium in Hawaii, where the term umami first gained international recognition as a scientific term.
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Foods that Have Umami
Foods that have umami include cheeses, meats, tomatoes, mushrooms, seaweed, fatty fish and shellfish. Other foods with umami are ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, vegemite or marmite, broth or stock, and dried vegetables, like sundried tomatoes or dried mushrooms. Fermented or aged foods also have umami, including wine, soy sauce, fish sauce and miso paste. MSG can also be added to dishes to enhance umami-rich ingredients or impart umami flavor.
According to the Umami Information Center, two kinds of nucleotides that most contribute to the umami taste are inosinate and guanylate. Inosinate is found primarily in meat and fish whereas guanylate is more abundant in the mushroom family such as dried shiitake mushrooms.
“When cooking if you have both glutamate umami and inosinate umami, it gives a synergistic effect and makes food even more delicious,” Yamashita says. “A good example of this synergistic effect is kombu/kelp (glutamate umami) and dried bonito (inosinate umami) cooked together to make dashi (broth) which is the base of all Japanese cooking.”
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