What Green Tea and MSG Have in Common
In elementary school science class we all learned about the four basic tastes that our taste buds can detect: sour, bitter, salty and sweet. There is also a fifth taste called umami. It’s a word borrowed from the Japanese language that describes a savory or meaty taste. It can be a be a bit hard to describe but seaweed, mushrooms, and aged cheeses are all examples of foods with umami. MSG, aka monosodium glutamate, is an amino acid that is naturally found in our bodies as well as in food. MSG is commonly used as an additive to enhance the savory effect of umami in food. It’s hotly debated whether or not MSG…
The Great Tea Debate: Oxidation vs Fermentation
When I first started drinking tea everyone referred to the changes that occur in tea during processing as fermentation. It has become a bit of a raging debate as to whether oxidation is accurate. Now, what exactly do these terms mean? Fermentation is a metabolic process where sugar is converted into acids, gasses, and alcohol. It usually carried out by an agent such as bacteria and yeast. Fermentation can occur naturally but humans learned long ago how to manipulate this process in order to make alcoholic beverages like beer and wine. Unless we are referring to kombucha, fermentation is not what is occurring during the manufacture of most tea. Oxidation is an enzymatic process that…
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