Tasting Using Cheese

With cheese, it is not fresh cheeses with a high moisture content that are rich in umami, but hard cheeses such as aged cheddars, Comté, and Mimolette. Italy’s extra-hard Parmigiano-Reggiano contains so much glutamate that it almost seems like solid umami. Slice cheese very thinly and place a piece about fingertip-size on the center of your tongue.

First to emerge will be strong salt and cheese flavors, but as you slowly chew and the cheese dissolves in your mouth, those flavors will subside, eventually leaving just a faint taste on the tongue. This taste is umami. The longer a cheese is aged, the more intense the umami, due to breakdown of protein in the cheese into glutamate and other amino acids. We recommend sampling cheeses with different aging times to compare them.