The 5 tastes are sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. They form the foundation of how you experience flavour and how you create balance in your dishes.
Umami is the most complex of the 5 tastes, and it is precisely this taste that our MATR product is made to enhance through mushroom fermentation.
The 5 tastes give you a wide range of flavour possibilities to explore in the kitchen. Once you understand how the different tastes interact, it becomes easier to create more balanced and inspiring everyday meals.
In this article, we explain what the 5 tastes are, how to use them in your cooking, and why umami is the taste that stands out most in MATR.
What are the 5 tastes?
Eating is about much more than simply deciding whether something tastes good or not. Your taste buds detect different flavour signals that come together to shape your overall experience of a dish.
The 5 tastes are the foundation of how we perceive flavour.
Great dishes are often created through the balance of the 5 tastes. Understanding how they work together makes it easier to create harmonious and well-balanced meals.
Most dishes rely on a combination of several tastes that complement and enhance each other.
Take a tomato sauce, for example. The natural sweetness of ripe tomatoes is balanced by salt, which also brings out the other flavours, while umami adds richness and depth.
When you become familiar with the 5 tastes, you also get better at recognising what a dish needs. Instead of relying solely on a recipe, you can learn to trust your own palate and adjust flavours as you go.
Does a dish taste flat? Try adding acidity or umami. Does it feel too sharp? A touch of sweetness can help bring it back into balance.
The 5 tastes explained
Sweet. Sweetness is one of the easiest tastes to recognise. It occurs naturally in fruit, berries, root vegetables, and many other vegetables. Sweet flavours signal that a food contains energy, which is one of the reasons humans have an eye for sweetness.
Sour. Sourness brings brightness and freshness to food. Ingredients such as lemon, vinegar, yoghurt, and fermented vegetables add acidity and can transform a dish completely. If a meal feels too heavy, a touch of sourness can make the flavour feel lighter and more vibrant.
Salty. Salt does more than add its own flavour. It also enhances the flavours around it. Used in the right amount, salt can bring out sweetness, balance acidity, and make the overall taste of a dish more round.
Bitter. Bitterness can be found in foods such as coffee, dark chocolate, leafy greens, and certain vegetables. While it can be intense on its own, bitterness also adds complexity when combined with other tastes. A bitter ingredient can, for example, become more balanced when paired with a little sweetness.
Umami. Umami is the taste among the 5 tastes that stands out the most. While sweet, salty, and bitter are often easier to identify, umami is a deeper and more layered taste that can be harder to describe for a lot of people.
Umami was recognised as a distinct taste in the early 20th century, when researchers discovered that glutamate creates a unique flavour experience that cannot be explained by the other tastes.
This unique umami taste is exactly what we enhance in our products.
What about spicy, is it one of the 5 tastes?
Spiciness is not one of the 5 tastes, although many people assume it is.
When you eat spicy foods such as chilli, your taste buds do not respond in the same way as they do to the 5 tastes.
Instead, your body detects a sensation of heat and irritation caused by a reaction in the pain and temperature receptors in your mouth.
This is why chilli is considered a complement to the 5 tastes rather than a taste of its own. A spicy dish can still be sweet, sour, salty, or rich in umami, while also giving that distinctive sensation of heat.
How do you use the 5 tastes in cooking?
Once you start paying closer attention to the 5 tastes, it becomes easier to adjust your dishes and create balance in your cooking.
A great example of how different tastes can work together is an Asian-inspired stir-fry.
Vegetables such as carrots and onions add natural sweetness, while soy sauce brings saltiness and umami. A splash of lime or rice vinegar adds acidity, which helps lift and brighten the overall flavour.
This creates a balanced flavour experience where none of the 5 tastes dominate, but instead work together to create harmony.
You can apply the same principles to many other everyday dishes. Below, we have summarised how each taste influences a dish, making it easier to incorporate them into your own cooking.
- Sweetness balances bitterness and spicy flavours.
- Acidity makes rich or heavy dishes feel fresher.
- Salt enhances and brings out other flavours.
- Bitterness adds depth and complexity.
- Umami creates richness and a more rounded flavour experience.
Umami in MATR and plant-based food
Plant-based food has received increasing attention in recent years as more people are choosing greener meals. As this trend continues to grow, expectations around flavour, texture, and quality have naturally increased as well.
MATR has followed this development closely. We saw that one of the key challenges for many plant-based food producers was creating a deep and satisfying flavour experience. And we wanted to change that.
Our goal was to create that depth of flavour through fermentation: an ancient food technique that enhances and unlocks umami, bringing out richer flavours in ingredients such as vegetables.
That is why we use mushroom fermentation to transform five organic vegetables into MATR. Through this process, the vegetables develop a natural umami flavour.
By adding depth, richness, and balance, umami has the power to transform the everyday dishes you already make at home.
Learn more about how this flavour develops in our article “Fermentation: What is it, and why is it one of nature’s oldest tricks?”
Experience the 5 tastes with MATR recipes
When you cook with MATR products, you quickly discover how umami can serve as a key element in a dish, creating both depth and balance between the other tastes.
A MATR Patty with classic butter potatoes is a great example of how the rich umami from our fermented vegetables can be combined with the gentle sweetness of the potatoes and the salty flavour of the butter sauce.
And if you go through our other recipes, you’ll be able to find many more examples of how the 5 tastes work together as the building blocks of a complete flavour experience.
Explore more MATR recipes or learn more about our products if you are curious about how they can become part of your everyday meals.
Frequently asked questions
What is the 5th taste?
Umami is the fifth taste. It is a deep, rich flavour that adds intensity and balance to food. Discover how we at MATR use natural umami to create depth in our plant-based products.
What foods have an umami flavour?
Umami can be found in ingredients such as mushrooms, tomatoes, fermented products, seaweed and aged foods. MATR gets its umami through mushroom fermentation of five vegetables.
Read more about the natural process of fermentation.
Can you buy umami seasoning?
Yes, you can buy different types of umami seasoning. They are often made from mushrooms or yeast. However, true umami comes naturally from ingredients and through fermentation, which creates the most concentrated umami experience.
How can I make homemade umami?
You can enhance umami in a dish by using ingredients such as mushrooms, miso, tomatoes, soy sauce or other fermented products. You can also use MATR as a plant-based element with natural umami depth.
Are bitter and sour the same?
No. Sourness comes from acids, such as those found in lemons, while bitterness is found in ingredients like coffee, cabbage and dark chocolate. They are different tastes that each contribute to the balance of a dish.