E. T. Contis et al.

(Editors)
Food Flavors: Formation, Analysis and Packaging Influences
© 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved 181

Evaluation in score of the intensity of salty and

umami tastes
Rie Kuramitsu

Akashi College of Technology, Uozumi, Akashi, Hyogo, 674, Japan

Abstract
It is important to know the balance of intensities of tastes in foods in order to analyze the
tasting mechanism of foods. However, it is extremely difficult to compare intensity of
different types of taste in a unified mode. This study compares the intensities of two different
tastes, salty and umami, using a common scale based on their respective threshold values by
making common scores. By employing these scores the tasting charac- teristics of soy sauces
to which were added various saltiness-enhancing agents was studied.

1. INTRODUCTION
Today, people's interest focuses on health, and particulariy the excessive intake of table
salt has received tremendous attention resulting in an increased demand for low NaCl-
containing foods. Soy sauce has a large amount of NaCl. In this study I attempted to decrease
the NaCl content of the soy sauce without spoiling the flavor. Soy sauce contains 15 - 18%
NaCl and 1 - 2% monosodium glutamate (MSG) and is a traditional seasoning with salty and
u/77a/27/tastes as the core of the tasting characteristics. The low NaCl-containig soy sauce used
in this study was prepared by using a pre-soy sauce with an NaCl content 0.5 time the NaCl
content of conventional soy sauce obtained by the short term fermentation method developed
by Muramatsu et al, [1] as the base material, and by adding a variety of peptidic saltiness-
enhancing substances which were developed by Tada et al. [2] and Tamura et al. [3] To
objectively evaluate the quality of various low NaCl-containing soy sauces prepared by this
method, I wanted to express the intensity of the salty and the umami tastes quantitatively on a
common scale. For this purpose respective threshold values of NaCl, a standard substance for
salty taste, and MSG, that of umamitaste, were used, and common scores were assigned for
successively increased concentrations by fold of the threshold values.

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.1. Soy sauce

A soy sauce that was manufactured by Tenyo Takeda Co. was used as a reference for
comparison. Its composition by analysis is shown in Table I. For the sake of differentiating
this from the pre-soy sauce that is described in the next section, it is designated as the
commercial soy sauce.
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2.2. Pre-soy sauce

The pre-soy sauce employed was a preparation made by the short fermentation process
which was developed by Muramatsu et al.[l] Essentially, commercial soy sauce and pre-soy
sauce are not different except in the two following points. The pre-soy sauce contained 8.13%
NaCl, which was about half of NaCl concentration in the commercial soy sauce. For asceptic
purposes, ethanol was added in at approximately twice that of the commercial soy sauce (Table
1).

Table 1
Composition of commercial soy sauce and pre-soy sauce

Contentes Commercial soy sauce Pre-soy sauce

(wt/v %) (wt/v %)

NaCl 16.26 8.13

Total nitrogen 1.67 1.54
Formol nitrogen 0.78 0.82
Reducing sugar 2.60 2.26
Ethanol 2.74 5.34
Lactic acid 0.660 0.550
Acetic acid 0.127 0.088

pH 4.79 4.85

2.3. Saltiness-enhancing substance

In addition to KCl which has been used as a typical additive, omithyltaurine hydrochloride
(Om-Tau- HCl), glycine ethyl ester hydrochloride (Gly-OEt* HCl) and lysine hydrochloride
(Lys" HCl) were also used as saltiness enhancing additives.

2.4. Preparation of low NaCl-containing soy sauce

The preparation of a 50% KCl-addtion was obtained by the following manner: To a pre-
soy sauce containing 8.13% of NaCl, KCl was added to 8.13% in the sample preparation.
This sample contained a sum of 16.26%, consisting of equal amount of NaCl and KCl ,
which was equal to the concentration of NaCl in the commercial soy sauce for comparison.
Other samples were prepared in a similar way. These sample solutions of low NaCl-
containing soy sauce were diluted serially to make the sum of the concentrations of each of the
additives plus NaCl 0.75, 0.625, 0.50, 0.375, 0.25 and 0.125% for sensory testing.

2.5. Sensory analysis

Taste intensity of samples were evaluated by a panel of 5 people using Table 2.
 183

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1. Score of the intensity of salty and umami tastes

NaCl was employed as the standard substance for salty taste. The threshold value of NaCl
was estimated to be 0.063%. In daily life we encounter NaCl solutions in soups. Miso soup,
a traditional Japanese food, contains about 1 % NaCl. Other foods that contain about 1 % NaCl
include hamburgers, steaks and meuniere of fish. Samples of foods that contain about 0.5%
NaCl are soups, fries with no coating and fried rice. These NaCl concentrations are popular
Japanese foods. Accordingly, the threshold value of 0.063% was made a Score of 1 NaCl
and the concentrations of NaCl between the threshold value and 1% were expressed in several
grades. Thus, a 2-fold concentration of the threshold value (0.125%) was a Score of 2, a 4-
fold concentration (0.25%) a Score of 3 and an 8-fold concentration (0.5%) a Score of 5. An
intermediate concentration (0.375%) of Scores 3 and 5 was made a Score of 4. A two-fold
concentration of Score 5 (1.0%) was made Score 9, and concentrations between Scores 5 and
9 were divided into 4 making Score 6 (0.625%), Score 7 (0.75%) and Score 8 (0.875%).
Score 10 corresponded to 1.2% NaCl.
MSG was used as the standard substance of umami taste. The threshold value of MSG
was estimated to be 0.025%. Scores for the intensity of umami taste were made similar to
those for salty taste. The results are shown in Table 2.

Table 2
Scores of the intensity of salty and umami tastes

Salty taste Umami taste

NaCl (%) Score MSG (%)

1.2 10 0.45
1.0 9 0.40
0.875 8 0.35
0.75 7 0.30
0.625 6 0.25
0.5 5 0.20
0.375 4 0.15
0.25 3 0.10
0.125 2 0.05
0.063 1 0.025

3.2. Comparison of intensities of salty and umami tastes in low

NaCl-containing soy sauce
Previously I have reported that the low NaCl-containing soy sauces with the addition of
saltiness enhancing substances at a ratio of 50%, had a satisfactory salty taste [4]. However,
these soy sauces also produced tastes different than that of ordinary soy sauce, probably due
to extensive changes in food composition caused by the addition of large amounts of the
substitute substances. I reported that the change in taste was dependent on the intensity of
umamitastCy but this judgement was merely subjective. In the present studies the intensities of
salty and umami tastes in the low NaCl-containing soy sauces and the commercial soy sauce
were represented quantitatively by using scores shown in Table 2, and the results are shown in
184

o
o

0.75% 0.625% 0.50% 0.375% 0.2.5% 0.125%

Om -Tau-HCl •

0.75% 0.625% 0.50% 0.375% 0.25%

lj»iii^l
0.125*/

O
O

0.75% 0.625% 0J50% 0.375% 0.25% 0.125%

ii^BLj
0.75% 0.625% 0.50% 0.375% 0.25% 0.125%

0.75% 0.6-25% 0.50% 0.375% 0.25% 0.125%

Concentration as NaCl (%)

Intensity of salty taste H Intensity of a/77a/77; taste

Figure 1. Comparison of intensity of salty and umam tastes in soy sauce by 50% adding
saltiness-substituting substances
 185

Figure 1. The scores of both tastes were represented on a common scale by the distances from
respective threshold values in successively increased concentrations by folding. It is noted that
the intensities of salty and umami tastes were in good agreement with those of commercial
soy sauce. Except for 0.125%, the commercial soy sauce showed the same scores for both
tastes; i.e., Score 7 for 0.75% and Score 6 for 0.625%. The results revealed that in this soy
sauce, intensities of both tastes were the same distance from their respective threshold values
and were well balanced for human taste evaluation. For the 0.125% soy sauce, the salty taste
was stronger than umami taste by 1 score. With Om-Tau" HCl intensities of salty and umami
tastes were considerably similar to those of the commercial soy sauce except at low
concentrations (0.25, 0.125%). With Gly-OEt- HCl, the salty taste was stronger than the
«/rzam/taste at higher concentrations (0.75 - 0.50%). With Lys- HCl, contrarily, the salty taste
was weaker than the umami taste at higher concentrations. By contrast to these peptide
replacers KCl demonstrated a very different effect. Over the entire range of concentrations of
added KCl, the umami taste was more prominent, and the difference from salty taste was more
distinct at higher concentrations. This effect is thought to be undesirable for the use of KCl in
foods as a NaCl substitute. In addition to its bitter taste, which has been known from long ago
this effect should work to reduce salty taste in foods when KCl is used.

4. CONCLUSION
Based on the respective threshold values, intensities of salty and umami tastes were
represented quantitatively in scores (Table 2).
By using the scores in Table 2 the tasting characteristics of low NaCl-containing soy sauces
to which were added various saltiness-enhancing substances were compared. The results
revealed that commercial soy sauce was an ideal food in that it possessed well balanced
intensities of salty and umami tastes. The balance of salty and [i/nam/tastes in the Om-Tau-
HCl-added low NaCl-containing soy sauce was close to that of the commercial soy sauce. The
low NaCl-containing soy sauce to which KCl, a long used substitute of NaCl, was added
showed too strong of a umami taste that killed the effect of salty taste.

5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Tenyo Takeda Co. for generous supply of commercial soy sauce and pre-soy sauce
that were used in the present experiments.

6. REFERENCES
1 S. Muramatsu, Y. Sano, and Y. Uzuka, ACS Symposium Series 528, A. M. Spanier, H.
Okai, and M. Tamum, (eds.), 200-210 (1993).
2 M. Tada, I. Shinoda, and H. Okai, /. Agric, Food Chem., 32 (1984), 992-996.
3 M. Tamura, T. Seki, Y. Kawasaki, M. Tada, E. Kikuchi, and H. Okai, Agric. Biol.
Chem., 53 (1989), 1625-1633.
4 D. Segawa, K. Nakamura, R. Kuramitsu, S. Muramatsu, Y. Sano, Y. Uzuka, M.
Tamura, and H. Okai, Biosci. Biotech. Biochem., 59 (1995), 35-39.