Sour, Sweet, Bitter, Salty, Umami: Does Coffee Contain Umami? Why Can't You Taste Umami in Coffee? How to Experience Coffee Flavors?

When describing food flavors—sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami—our tongues have different taste receptors to perceive and distinguish them. However, when it comes to coffee, people generally focus on describing acidity, sweetness, bitterness, and saltiness. These four flavors are also the most easily tasted and detected types of flavors in coffee.

With the development and popularization of specialty coffee, the flavor description language system has become richer. Occasionally, the adjective "umami" has appeared in the industry, becoming a highlight for certain coffee products. For example, FrontStreet Coffee once saw the descriptor "umami" on a package of Panama Geisha coffee beans, which不禁让人心生好奇: can umami really be tasted in coffee?

What is Umami?

Professor Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University in Japan is considered the first person to describe umami as an independent concept. In 1908, he revealed the scientific essence of umami from the microscopic world. Legend has it that he noticed a very unique and distinct flavor in a broth and firmly believed there must be a "flavor molecule" within it. After a long process of research, extraction, and separation, he discovered that umami was the result of free glutamic acid and finally succeeded in finding the "flavor molecule" he had initially guessed—glutamic acid—from kelp.

For a long time, umami has been a relatively abstract concept. The English equivalent of "umami" actually evolved from the combination of Japanese words umai (うまい, meaning delicious) and mi (味, meaning taste). As a result, for a long time, when people talked about umami, they only described it as a delicious flavor.

As the fifth basic taste, "umami" is usually associated with foods cooked with ingredients such as meat, fish, shellfish, and certain fungi and plants. Unlike sour, sweet, bitter, and salty flavors, it typically cannot be clearly and quickly perceived by people, belonging to a more complex flavor perception.

Can Coffee Have "Umami"?

Scientific research shows that all foods contain certain glutamates, including coffee. However, in coffee, for taste receptors to identify a particular flavor, the number of molecules must reach a certain threshold. This means that the number of umami molecules needs to be close to those of sour, sweet, bitter, and other tastes in order to truly experience umami in coffee.

However, the actual glutamic acid content in raw coffee beans is extremely low. Our taste receptors simply cannot identify such low-concentration flavor molecules in coffee. Therefore, those who claim to taste "umami" in coffee are clearly not experiencing the result of free glutamic acid, but rather obtaining flavors through the combined action of smell and taste. To some extent, this "umami" is more like a taste illusion rather than a truly existing flavor.

When we taste coffee, smell and taste interact with each other, and smell plays an important role in flavor perception. Smell is divided into two stages: orthonasal olfaction (smelling through the nose) and retronasal olfaction (smelling through the mouth). When the concrete aroma brought by retronasal olfaction makes us associate with very sweet food, we will subconsciously feel that this cup of coffee has a high sweetness. Similarly, those who "taste umami" most likely associate certain aromas and mouthfeel in coffee with their impression of "umami," thereby generating the perception of umami.

Understanding the Expression of "Umami" in Coffee

As mentioned earlier, compared to the easily identifiable sweet, bitter, sour, and salty tastes, umami is difficult for our taste buds to distinguish alone. More often, it is a complex and intertwined flavor, which is why when we describe certain delicious foods, we use terms like "umami-sweet" and "salty-umami." Some people even believe that umami is just a form of saltiness because the two often appear simultaneously.

Returning to our coffee tasting, the "culprit" causing the umami illusion is likely saltiness. When brewing light roast coffee, if the extraction is insufficient or the concentration is too high, it's easy to taste saltiness. This is because the sweet substances in coffee fail to be released or are masked, while acidity occupies a large proportion. Such coffee often has a salty-sour taste when entering the mouth, which is then mistaken for "umami." The testing method is simple: directly add a small amount of water to dilute the coffee and see if the salty taste disappears.

Additionally, with the continuous development of the industry, more and more players are entering the coffee field, with more detailed branches in every segment. People are no longer confined to the vocabulary on the traditional flavor wheel but instead use more open and novel ways to describe their black coffee, and "umami" is one of them. Although the probability of actual "umami" appearing in coffee is very low (almost zero), people still choose to use such a more mouth-watering term to describe it, indicating that this coffee makes the taster feel an excellent taste comparable to "umami."

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