TIL: Kokumi Umami is the deep, savory fullness you get from glutamate-rich foods like aged cheese, mushrooms, or dashi: it's the taste of protein, signaling “this is nourishing.” Kokumi, on the other hand, isn’t a taste per se but a kind of amplifier, a background enhancer that makes flavors feel rounder, thicker, longer-lasting (think wave envelope modifier). Imagine umami as the melody and kokumi as the reverb and richness that gives it body. Garlic, onion, and fermented products often carry kokumi compounds like γ-glutamyl peptides, which don’t taste like much on their own but dial up the sense of presence, depth, and mouthfeel across all basic tastes. If umami says “here’s something good,” kokumi says “let it sink in and develop.”