Recent developments on umami ingredients of edible mushrooms – A review

• Elucidate the information on the umami taste of edible mushrooms.
• Enlighten the health benefits of mushroom based functional foods and food flavors.
• Summarize the recent developments in the field of umami taste of mushrooms.

Umami is a pleasant savory taste which has been attributed mainly to the presence of sodium salts of glutamic and aspartic amino acids and 5′-nucleotides. It was widely investigated in recent years. Edible mushrooms have a peculiar umami taste. The umami taste makes the edible mushrooms palatable and adaptable in most food preparations. There is an increased interest on the evaluation of umami ingredients in various edible mushroom species in recent years. This paper mainly summarizes effects of the species type, maturity stage, part of mushroom, quality grade, storing time and processing methods on contents of umami ingredients in edible mushrooms. In addition, newly developed mushroom products, health benefits of mushroom products, safety of umami ingredients are reviewed and the future trends of the umami ingredients in the edible mushrooms are proposed.