umami
sensation / sensation-umami
うま味
Umami that shapes the fullness of dashi and fermented seasonings creates a "umami-bitter" depth when it meets bitterness. The sensations of people who eat a dish and cell assays using a single receptor should be read as separate windows.
On this page (6 sections)
Reading the bitterness
In a sensory test in which the umami substance monosodium glutamate (MSG) or disodium 5'-inosinate (IMP) was added alone to an extract of bitter gourd, a bitter vegetable, bitterness showed a tendency to weaken but did not reach statistical significance. In the same test, the condition with salt added alone showed a significant decrease in bitterness. By contrast, adding katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes) itself or its whole stock greatly reduced bitterness, both in raw bitter gourd and in gōya chanpurū. In an experiment investigating the cause, the authors cite as the main factor that the solid portion of katsuobushi remaining after stock extraction (spent katsuobushi) adsorbs the bitter substances of bitter gourd. The paper concludes that the umami and salty taste effects alone are hard to use to explain the strong reduction in bitterness seen with katsuobushi itself.
Many of the situations in which umami is described as softening bitterness involve foods such as dashi or katsuobushi, where salt, umami and solid material are all present together. In the same study, sprinkling katsuobushi on raw bitter gourd or on gōya chanpurū markedly lowered bitterness (raw bitter gourd p<0.001, chanpurū p<0.01), and mixing ground spent katsuobushi into the extract also lowered it markedly (p<0.001). When the extract was passed through a column packed with spent katsuobushi, the bitter components were retained and eluted with 60% ethanol, from which the authors infer that the effect is due mainly to physical adsorption onto the solid material. The action of umami compounds themselves and the action of a whole dashi ingredient need to be read separately.
Sources for this overview
Reduction of Bitterness of the Bitter Gourd by Katsuobushi
Checked for this overview: Used for the contrast in which MSG and IMP added alone did not reach significance, while only the salt addition was significant / Used for the marked reduction in bitterness with katsuobushi, its stock, and spent katsuobushi, and for the discussion of the adsorption mechanism / Supports the marked reductions with katsuobushi and spent katsuobushi (p<0.001, p<0.01), the elution with 60% ethanol, and the authors' inference of physical adsorption.
Follow the connections
quinine →can enhance→ umami
umami →does not significantly infl…→ bitterness →can be measured separately …→ astringency
Structured claims — open a section to read each claim's confidence, evidence and limits
Sensory (2)
Scope: Layer: solution. A sensory evaluation in which subthreshold quinine sulfate was added to umami solutions of monosodium glutamate and bonito-flavored seasoning (a panel of men and women aged 19-20, using a 100 mm Visual Analogue Scale). Umami solutions containing subthreshold quinine sulfate tended to show higher umami intensity, and the umami aftertaste was also significantly prolonged (Tsutsumi, Kawasaki & Mizusawa 2011).
Note: With subthreshold naringin, no significant difference in umami intensity was detected (a different result from quinine).
Show data
compound-quinine —can_enhance→ sensation-umamiScope: Layer: food. Human sensory evaluation using bitter gourd extract (a panel selected and trained in bitterness identification and ranking). An experiment (Figure 3) comparing salt, IMP, and MSG added individually as candidate active components for the bitterness suppression observed with katsuobushi stock.
Show data
sensation-umami —does_not_significantly_influence→ sensation-bitter