Taste Characteristics Analysis of Compound Umami Products Based on Free Amino Acids and Sensory Evaluation of Umami Taste

Currently, compound umami products in China are in the initial stage of development, which have not formed a systematic study yet. Hence, 12 kinds of commercially available compound umami products were analyzed for 17 free amino acids. It was found that the taste activity values (TAV) of glutamic acid (Glu) contributed the most, with TAV ranging from 4.12 to 228.86. The correlation analysis showed a significant positive correlation between other amino acids, except for Glu. Meanwhile, three principal components were extracted, with the cumulative variance contribution of 93.19%, which could effectively reflect most of information on the free amino acids in compound umami products. Partial least squares (PLS) analysis revealed a consistency between evaluation of umami taste and equivalent umami concentrations (EUC). This paper systematically evaluated the taste characteristics of compound umami products and provided a theoretical reference for research and development of compound umami products.