UMAMI
What exactly is Umami?
Most of us are familiar with the four basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, but are you aware that there is a fifth one? It’s umami! Umami is the Japanese word for “taste”. This fifth taste profile can be described as a savory flavor that is synonymous with dried mushrooms, meats, and seafood. The caramelization that happens to onions when you sauté them or the browning on a piece of meat when it’s cooked all display that umami taste. Other examples of the umami taste appear in fermented foods such as soy sauce, fish sauce, and oyster sauce.
Discovering Umami from Seaweed
Interestingly enough the first discovery of umami was found by a Japanese chemist in the early nineteen hundreds while studying kelp. It would take seventy-eight years after his discovery for umami to be widely recognized as a basic taste.
Our brush with umami first happened while experimenting in our own kitchen making stock out of seaweed as well as seaweed salad that had been left in the refrigerator a little too long causing the flavors to concentrate. It brought forth all that umami goodness and we knew we had something special on our hands.
The Sozye Umami Trio
Our sauce line includes organic NISH sauce, organic NOYA sauce, and organic NOYSTER sauce. They can all seamlessly replace your current use of traditional fish sauce, soya sauce, and oyster sauce. All three of our plant-based seaweed-derived sauces are free from any preservatives or common allergen-causing foods like gluten and soya. Each sauce packs a powerful umami flavor stemming from the sustainably sourced Scottish seaweed.