Green Tea

Appears in
Umami: Unlocking the Secrets of the Fifth Taste
Umami

By Ole Mouritsen and Klavs Styrbæk

Published 2014

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Extracts from green tea leaves have fairly large quantities of free glutamate, for example, about 450 mg per 100 g for those of the highest quality (gyokuro) and about half as much for the more ordinary varieties (sencha). On the other hand, roasted tea (hōjicha) has very little, about 22 mg per 100 g. But there is actually a completely different amino acid that is thought to be responsible for the strong umami taste in green tea.

Green tea leaves have very large quantities of the amino acid theanine, about 2,500 mg per 100 g. It is the most prominent of the taste substances in tea leaves, where it makes up about half of the free amino acids. Theanine is derived from glutamic acid and imparts umami.