What is Umami

Do you remember the last time you had difficultiy describing a taste? Most likely you are trying to describe umami.

 

Umami is the fifth taste besides sweet, salty, sour and bitter. It's always being described as the mysterious fifth taste because if blends very well with other tastes, and people won't recognize when they taste it, but umami is an important element in making food delicious.

 

Umami always there, but no word can decribe that until 19th century, Kikunae Ikeda tried to descrie that. Umami taste comes from a type of amino acid that reacts to the receptors in our tongue, causing chemical process that results in umai taste. It can't be produced by mixing any of the other primary tastes (sweet, sour, salt, bitter).

 

Human Tastes

 

So, what does umami taste like?

Umami is literally Japanese term which carries the meaning of "pleasant taste", it's not sweet, not sour, not salty nor bitter. It's just a pleasant taste that you can't really describe.

 

All our matcha has umami taste, ceremony grade matcha has highest umami taste. If you want to taste what is umami, try our highest grade and try to describe that.

Our Imperial Ceremonial Matcha has highest level of umami.