gogyō five-flavor season table
concept / concept-gogyou-five-taste-season-table
五行色体表
Gogyō five-flavor season table is a traditional classification framework based on the Five Phases theory of Chinese traditional medicine, associating the five tastes (sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, and salty) with the five seasons (spring, summer, late summer, autumn, and winter), among other categories. It is explained in dietary-therapy and acupuncture educational materials.
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Reading the bitterness
A Five Phases correspondence table is a traditional classification framework in Chinese traditional medicine that associates the five tastes (sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, and salty) with the five seasons (spring, summer, late summer, autumn, and winter), among other categories. It appears in educational materials on dietary therapy and acupuncture. One dietary-therapy website says 「夏は心臓を傷めやすい季節で、適度な苦味を摂り心→脾を養生します」 (in translation: "summer is a season that easily damages the heart; take moderate bitterness to nourish the heart→spleen"), associating bitterness with summer and the heart within this framework.
An acupuncture vocational school’s educational page, by contrast, gives the Wood series as 「木」 (in translation: "Wood") and 「肝―目―筋―青―酸―風―怒―涙―春」 (in translation: "liver–eyes–sinews–blue-green–sourness–wind–anger–tears–spring"), associating sourness, not bitterness, with spring. The saying 「春の皿には苦味を盛れ」 (in translation: "fill the spring plate with bitterness") and the passage attributed to Ishizuka Sagen as its origin instead assign bitterness to spring. Thus Ishizuka’s food-regimen account and the classical Five Phases table disagree at least on the season assigned to bitterness. This entry does not decide which is correct; it records how each source states the correspondence.
A peer-reviewed review of Heidelberg School Chinese medicine introduces a framework that classifies the five tastes by yin-yang properties and assigns each to a Five Phases category. In that framework, the article says bitterness belongs to Fire (heart and small intestine), and it quotes 『黄帝内経』 (in translation: "Huangdi Neijing") as saying 「酸は肝に入り、苦は心に入り、甘は脾に入り、辛は肺に入り、鹹は腎に入る」 (in translation: "Sourness enters the liver, bitterness the heart, sweetness the spleen, pungency the lungs, and saltiness the kidneys"). The article does not discuss the correspondence between the five tastes and the five seasons (spring, summer, late summer, autumn, winter); only the tastes–Five Phases (organ) associations can be confirmed from it.
Sources for this overview
Checked for this overview: Used the account associating bitterness with summer and the heart.
Checked for this overview: Used for comparison with the account associating sourness with spring.
Checked for this overview: Introduced the Huangdi Neijing quotation assigning bitterness to Fire and the heart.
Follow the connections
"Fill the spring plate with bitterness" (Japanese saying) →differs from→ gogyō five-flavor season table
Structured claims — open a section to read each claim's confidence, evidence and limits
Culture (2)
Scope: Comparison with the five-flavor/five-season correspondence table of Five Phases (gogyou) theory
Note: 「春の皿には苦味を盛れ」 (in translation: "fill the spring plate with bitterness") and the passage attributed to Ishizuka Sagen as its origin assign bitterness to spring, but in the five-flavor/five-season correspondence table of Five Phases theory, which derives from traditional Chinese medicine, bitterness is assigned to summer and the heart (shin, the heart organ), while spring is assigned sourness and the liver. The correspondence between Ishizuka Sagen's dietary theory and the classical Five Phases scheme does not match, at least in the seasonal placement of bitterness. NIGAMI LAB does not judge which side is correct on this agreement or disagreement; it records only how each is stated in its own source.
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concept-spring-bitter-plate-saying —differs_from→ concept-gogyou-five-taste-season-tableScope: Layer: Literature. A peer-reviewed review explaining the Heidelberg School of Chinese Medicine framework.
Note: The existing body text is based on web media and a vocational school’s educational page. This claim adds the corresponding bitter–Fire–heart association from a scholarly review published in a peer-reviewed journal.
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concept-gogyou-five-taste-season-table —is_defined_as→ "In a peer-reviewed review of Heidelberg School Chinese medicine, the five tastes are described as classified by yin-yang properties and each assigned to one of the Five Phases. Bitterness is described as belonging to Fire (heart and small intestine), and the article quotes 『黄帝内経』 (in translation: "Huangdi Neijing"): 「酸は肝に入り、苦は心に入り、甘は脾に入り、辛は肺に入り、鹹は腎に入る」 (in translation: "Sourness enters the liver, bitterness the heart, sweetness the spleen, pungency the lungs, and saltiness the kidneys")."