Dataset of verbal evaluation of umami taste in Europe

Emilia Iannilli; Antti Knaapila; Maria Paola Cecchini; Thomas Hummel

doi:10.1016/j.dib.2019.105102

Dataset of verbal evaluation of umami taste in Europe

Data Brief. 2020 Jan 7:28:105102. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2019.105102. eCollection 2020 Feb.

Authors

Emilia Iannilli¹, Antti Knaapila^{2

3}, Maria Paola Cecchini⁴, Thomas Hummel¹

Affiliations

¹ Interdisciplinary Center "Smell & Taste", Department of Otorhinolaryngology, TU Dresden, Germany.
² Department of Food and Nutrition, University of Helsinki, Finland.
³ Department of Biochemistry, University of Turku, Finland.
⁴ Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, Section of Anatomy and Histology, School of Medicine, University of Verona, Italy.

Abstract

The data presented here includes verbal descriptors used by Finnish, German and Italian subjects to express the quality of an umami taste solution offered in a blind fashion. The dataset refers to the research article "A cross-cultural survey of Umami Familiarity in European Countries" [1]. Data shows that a total of 106 different classes of words, including synonyms, were used by the Finnish group, 64 different classes of words, including synonyms, were used by the German group, and a total of 70 different classes of words, including synonyms, were used by the Italian group. The descriptors are reported in Excel tables and visualized in a bar graph where the length of the bars indicates the number of given answers for each class.

Keywords: Familiarity; Flavors; Food palatability; Glutamate; Salt; Synergism; Taste; Umami perception.