egumi (Japanese food descriptor)
concept / concept-egumi
えぐみ
Egumi (Japanese food descriptor) is a Japanese food-sensory term expressed as "harsh" or "harshness". It should be defined by food and usage, including roughness on the tongue or in the throat, irritation, and lingering unpleasantness, rather than fixed to a single basic taste such as bitterness.
On this page (9 sections)
Reading the bitterness
「えぐみ」 (in translation: "harshness") is too broad to dismiss as another name for bitterness and too variable to fix as one basic taste. A research group led by NARO developed 「米飯の官能評価用語体系」 (in translation: "A Sensory Evaluation Terminology System for Cooked Rice"). 「官能評価」 (in translation: "sensory evaluation") means using sight, smell, and oral senses to assess cooked rice's appearance, aroma, taste, and texture. 「用語体系」 (in translation: "terminology system") is a 「評価語の辞書」 (in translation: "dictionary of evaluation terms") for recording and comparing those features in shared words. Here, cooked rice means boiled rice — the rice people eat as a meal. That dictionary treats 「苦味がある」 (in translation: "has bitterness") as a basic taste on the tongue and 「えぐみがある」 (in translation: "has harshness") as a harsh, throat-catching sensation as if aku were clinging to the tongue or throat, in two separate entries. In this evaluation of cooked rice at least, egumi is not merely another word for the strength of bitterness.
A spinach experiment examined this more closely. Researchers defined the unpleasant sensation lingering after tasting oxalic-acid solution as 「シュウ酸味」 (in translation: "oxalate taste") and separated a water extract of leaves into two fractions. Oxalic acid and its taste were recovered in the water fraction, whereas bitterness was recovered in the ethanol fraction. Oxalic acid was not the bitter substance in this sample, so lingering sensation described as egumi can be considered separately from bitterness. This one example cannot be used to conclude that oxalic acid explains all egumi.
NIGAMI LAB therefore uses egumi as a starting point for more precise questions, not an axis of sensation tied to one receptor. Does it arise as taste on the tongue? Do cheeks or gums feel dry? Does the back of the throat feel rough? Does irritation remain after swallowing? Even when someone says 「えぐい」 (in translation: "harsh"), the phenomenon may differ with the food, its part, preparation, and the location and time of the sensation. This uncertainty is not a flaw; it leaves room to design the next experiment from cooking language.
Sources for this overview
Checked for this overview: The cooked-rice terminology system defined bitterness and egumi as separate entries. / Basis for treating egumi as a term tied to food context and oral location and time.
Checked for this overview: In spinach fractionation, oxalic-acid taste and bitterness were recovered in separate fractions. / An example in which egumi could be investigated separately from bitterness within one food.
定量的記述分析法による市販の生しょうゆと火入れしょうゆの評価および日本のしょうゆの特徴の体系化
Checked for this overview: A separate use in soy sauce treating astringency and egumi as combined attributes.
Other names: えぐ味 (ja)
Follow the connections
egumi (Japanese food descriptor) →can be measured separately …→ bitterness →can be measured separately …→ astringency
bitterness →is not synonymous with→ egumi (Japanese food descriptor)
Hypotheses and recipe candidates for this entry are on the Japanese page.
Structured claims — open a section to read each claim's confidence, evidence and limits
Composition and content (1)
Scope: Layer: food. Fresh spinach leaves, water extract, and boiling liquid, and their solid-phase extraction fractions (water-eluted fraction / ethanol-eluted fraction). Sensory evaluation by a small number of people (including the authors).
Note: The source states 「ホウレンソウの苦味については、シュウ酸とは異なる成分によるものと考えられる」 (in translation: "the bitterness of spinach is considered to be due to a component distinct from oxalic acid") — its own conclusion that the oxalate taste (the subject of the egumi debate) and bitterness are not the same substance. As a separate proposition supporting the existing claim that oxalate taste can be measured apart from bitterness, this is the identification-side conclusion that spinach's bitter substance is not oxalic acid.
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sensation-bitter —is_not_synonymous_with→ concept-egumiSensory (3)
Scope: A dictionary of evaluation terms created so that people can examine cooked rice using senses such as sight, smell, and taste, and record its characteristics with shared vocabulary
Note: The paper calls this 「米飯の官能評価用語体系」 (in translation: "the terminological system for sensory evaluation of cooked rice"). It is a definition meant for use within the product domain of cooked rice, not a statement of the sole definition of egumi in general or of a single receptor mechanism.
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concept-egumi —is_defined_in_context_as→ "A harsh, throat-catching sensation, as if aku were clinging to the tongue or throat"Scope: A single study that passed water-extracted components of spinach through an adsorbent and separated them into two groups with different properties
Note: "Oxalate taste," a term given its meaning within this study, collected on the side that washed out with water, while bitterness collected on the side subsequently extracted with ethanol. This is not a claim that egumi in every food derives from oxalate.
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concept-egumi —can_be_measured_separately_from→ sensation-bitterScope: A study in which trained assessors scored intensity for each fixed term and compared 12 commercial soy sauce brands
Note: In the abstract as confirmed, astringency and egumi cannot be separated into distinct scores. Nor is this equated with the definitions used for cooked rice or spinach.
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concept-egumi —is_presented_as→ "A single evaluation item that combines astringency and egumi"Culture (4)
Scope: Digital Daijisen, 「蘞い（えぐい）」 (in translation: "egui"), sense 1 (as republished on Kotobank)
Note: The headword's kanji spellings are 「蘞い／醶い」 (in translation: "egui / egui (alternative kanji)").
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concept-egumi —is_defined_in_dictionary_as→ "『あくが強くて、いがらっぽい感じがする。えがらっぽい。』 (in translation: "Has a strong aku, a husky sensation. Egarappoi [huskily acrid].") Example sentence: 「山菜を食べたあと、のどが―・い」 (in translation: "After eating wild greens, the throat is egu-i.")"Scope: Digital Daijisen, 「蘞い（えぐい）」 (in translation: "egui"), sense 2 (as republished on Kotobank)
Note: A figurative sense used colloquially.
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concept-egumi —is_defined_in_dictionary_as→ "『俗に、むごたらしいさま。また、どぎついさま。』 (in translation: "Colloquially, cruel; also, garish or over-the-top.") Example: 「―・い描写」 (in translation: "a graphic [egui] depiction")"Scope: Digital Daijisen, 「蘞い（えぐい）」 (in translation: "egui"), sense 3 (as republished on Kotobank)
Note: A quotation from Suzuki Miekichi's 「小鳥の巣」 (in translation: "Kotori no Su, i.e. The Bird's Nest").
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concept-egumi —is_defined_in_dictionary_as→ "『我が強くて思いやりのないさま。きつい。』 (in translation: "Strong-willed and inconsiderate; harsh.") Quotation: 「では何か…、―・い事でもお言いなしたのですかい?」 (in translation: "So then... did you say something [egui]?") (Miekichi, Kotori no Su [The Bird's Nest])"Scope: Digital Daijisen, 「蘞い（えごい）」 (in translation: "egoi") entry (as republished on Kotobank)
Note: 「えごい」 (in translation: "egoi"), a variant synonymous with 「えぐい」 (in translation: "egui"), is listed alongside it within the same dictionary entry.
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concept-egumi —is_documented_in→ "『えご・い〔ゑごい〕【×蘞い／×醶い】［形］［文］ゑご・し［ク］「えぐい」に同じ。』 (in translation: "egoi [historical kana wegoi]. [obsolete kanji: egui / egui] [adjective] [classical] wegoshi [ku-type]. Same as egui.") Quotation: 「苦く、―・く、すっぱく…稀有な声だぞ」 (in translation: "Bitter, [egoi], sour... what a rare voice.")"