Kokumi – The Sixth Taste?

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For all our sophistication in the kitchen, the scientific understanding of how we taste food could still use some time in the oven. Dating back to ancient Greece and China, the sensation of taste has historically been described as the combination of a handful of distinct perceptions. Western food research has long been dominated by the four “basic tastes” of sweet, bitter, sour and salty.

Western science now recognizes the East’s umami (savory) as a basic taste. But even the age-old concept of basic tastes is starting to unravel, as current belief is that there is no accepted definition of basic taste, and that the rules are changing as we speak.

Our ability to sense the five accepted categories comes from receptors on our taste buds. These tiny sensory organs appear mostly on the tongue, the roof of the mouth and in the back of the throat. In the mouth itself, though food scientists continue to discover new receptors and new pathways for gustatory impressions to reach our brain, and there are some new taste sensations vying for a place at the table as a sixth basic taste.

The latest “sixth taste candidate,” kokumi, a taste impression identified in an amino acid that interacts with our tongue’s calcium receptors. Widely accepted in Japan since 2010, it’s beginning to gain traction in the Western hemisphere as well. It has been the subject of scientific inquiry in Japan since the 1980s, recently propagated by researchers from the same Japanese food company, Ajinomoto, who helped convince the taste world of the fifth basic taste, umami, a decade ago.

Best described as “rich” and “taste” or “mouthfulness” and “heartiness”; it is almost as much a feeling as a taste. This results in enhancement of flavors already in the mouth, providing a sensation of richness. Braised, aged or slowcooked foods supposedly contain greater natural levels of kokumi, as do foods like garlic, onions, and scallops.

As a contender for “the sixth taste” it is ahead of other concepts, but the verdict is still out — for now it remains a concept in its infancy that is worth exploring.

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