Egumi (Japanese food descriptor) is a Japanese food-sensory term expressed as "harsh" or "harshness". It should be defined by food and usage, including roughness on the tongue or in the throat, irritation, and lingering unpleasantness, rather than fixed to a single basic taste such as bitterness.
「えぐみ」 (in translation: "harshness") is too broad to dismiss as another name for bitterness and too variable to fix as one basic taste. A research group led by NARO developed 「米飯の官能評価用語体系」 (in translation: "A Sensory Evaluation Terminology System for Cooked Rice"). 「官能評価」 (in translation: "sensory evaluation") means using sight, smell, and oral senses to assess cooked rice's appearance, aroma, taste, and texture. 「用語体系」 (in translation: "terminology system") is a 「評価語の辞書」 (in translation: "dictionary of evaluation terms") for recording and comparing those features in shared words. Here, cooked rice means boiled rice — the rice people eat as a meal. That dictionary treats 「苦味がある」 (in translation: "has bitterness") as a basic taste on the tongue and 「えぐみがある」 (in translation: "has harshness") as a harsh, throat-catching sensation as if aku were clinging to the tongue or throat, in two separate entries. In this evaluation of cooked rice at least, egumi is not merely another word for the strength of bitterness.
A spinach experiment examined this more closely. Researchers defined the unpleasant sensation lingering after tasting oxalic-acid solution as 「シュウ酸味」 (in translation: "oxalate taste") and separated a water extract of leaves into two fractions. Oxalic acid and its taste were recovered in the water fraction, whereas bitterness was recovered in the ethanol fraction. Oxalic acid was not the bitter substance in this sample, so lingering sensation described as egumi can be considered separately from bitterness. This one example cannot be used to conclude that oxalic acid explains all egumi.
NIGAMI LAB therefore uses egumi as a starting point for more precise questions, not an axis of sensation tied to one receptor. Does it arise as taste on the tongue? Do cheeks or gums feel dry? Does the back of the throat feel rough? Does irritation remain after swallowing? Even when someone says 「えぐい」 (in translation: "harsh"), the phenomenon may differ with the food, its part, preparation, and the location and time of the sensation. This uncertainty is not a flaw; it leaves room to design the next experiment from cooking language.
早川文代; 梅本貴之; 風見由香利; 中野優子; 吉澤浩二; 諏訪憲久; 安藤美紀子 / 2025 / journal article / full text checked
Checked for this overview: The cooked-rice terminology system defined bitterness and egumi as separate entries. / Basis for treating egumi as a term tied to food context and oral location and time.
堀江秀樹; 伊藤秀和 / 2006 / journal article / full text checked
Checked for this overview: In spinach fractionation, oxalic-acid taste and bitterness were recovered in separate fractions. / An example in which egumi could be investigated separately from bitterness within one food.
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Composition and content (1)
bitterness is not synonymous with egumi (Japanese food descriptor)preliminary
Scope: Layer: food. Fresh spinach leaves, water extract, and boiling liquid, and their solid-phase extraction fractions (water-eluted fraction / ethanol-eluted fraction). Sensory evaluation by a small number of people (including the authors).
Note: The source's summary concludes 「ホウレンソウの苦味については、シュウ酸とは異なる成分によるものと考えられる」 (in translation: "the bitterness of spinach is considered to come from a component different from oxalic acid"). This is the authors' consideration of the cause of bitterness, not a direct demonstration that bitterness and egumi are not synonymous, so the evidence relation was set to contextualizes (2026-10-21, expansion stage N5 stage C batch 4, checked by Codex). The bitter compound was not identified.
Context: The source states 「ホウレンソウの苦味については、シュウ酸とは異なる成分によるものと考えられる」 (in translation: "the bitterness of spinach is considered to be due to a component distinct from oxalic acid") as its conclusion.
Limitations: Panel training was difficult, and the sensory evaluation involved only a small number of people including the authors (exact number not given). The intensities of oxalate taste and bitterness were recorded only as +/- symbols, not as numbers, and no statistical test is reported. The bitter compound was not identified. This is the authors' consideration of the cause of bitterness, not a direct demonstration that bitterness and egumi are not synonymous.
egumi (Japanese food descriptor) is defined in that context as: A harsh, throat-catching sensation, as if aku were clinging to the tongue or throatsupported
Scope: A dictionary of evaluation terms created so that people can examine cooked rice using senses such as sight, smell, and taste, and record its characteristics with shared vocabulary
Note: The paper calls this 「米飯の官能評価用語体系」 (in translation: "the terminological system for sensory evaluation of cooked rice"). It is a definition meant for use within the product domain of cooked rice, not a statement of the sole definition of egumi in general or of a single receptor mechanism.
The dictionary of evaluation terms for cooked rice defines bitterness as the bitterness among the basic tastes, perceived on the tongue by the sense of taste, and defines egumi as a harsh, throat-catching sensation as if aku were clinging to the tongue or throat. As supplements for egumi it gives the harsh sensation that remains at the back of the mouth after swallowing rice cake, or the harsh sensation felt from rice bran, and states that off-taste (zatsumi) becomes egumi when it gets stronger. Both are used as negative expressions.
Limitations: A dictionary of vocabulary built specifically for cooked rice; it does not directly define what egumi means in vegetables or beverages. Bitterness and egumi are among the 120 terms and were offered in the CATA, but this evidence uses only the definition sentences, and the text gives no intensity ratings or per-item selection rates (Fig. 5 is a plot of term scores). The supplementary examples (rice cake, rice bran) are examples in cooked rice.
Source: 米飯の官能評価用語体系の構築 (早川文代; 梅本貴之; 風見由香利; 中野優子; 吉澤浩二; 諏訪憲久; 安藤美紀子, 2025) · full text checked
Show dataconcept-egumi —is_defined_in_context_as→ (the claim sentence above)
egumi (Japanese food descriptor) can be measured separately from bitternesssupported
Scope: A single study that passed water-extracted components of spinach through an adsorbent and separated them into two groups with different properties
Note: "Oxalate taste," a term given its meaning within this study, collected on the side that washed out with water, while bitterness collected on the side subsequently extracted with ethanol. This is not a claim that egumi in every food derives from oxalate.
When a water extract of spinach leaf blades (cv. Parade) was separated on a C18 adsorbent, oxalic acid and "oxalate taste" — a term given its meaning within this study — stayed in the fraction that washed out with water (oxalic acid 368 mg/L, oxalate taste ++), while bitterness was felt in the fraction then eluted with ethanol (oxalic acid 4 mg/L, oxalate taste −, bitterness +). The unfractionated liquid had oxalic acid 380 mg/L, oxalate taste ++ and bitterness +. The authors interpreted this as showing that the bitter substance is not oxalic acid.
Limitations: An evaluation in which a small panel including the authors (exact number not given) recorded intensity with symbols (− to +++); no statistical test is reported. Not a common scale usable for egumi in general. The explanation that crystals form in the mouth is the authors' interpretation based on separate model-test conditions.
egumi (Japanese food descriptor) is presented as: A single evaluation item that combines astringency and egumiobservation
Scope: A study in which trained assessors scored intensity for each fixed term and compared 12 commercial soy sauce brands
Note: In the abstract as confirmed, astringency and egumi cannot be separated into distinct scores. Nor is this equated with the definitions used for cooked rice or spinach.
When 13 assessors compared 6 pairs (12 brands), heat-treated soy sauce had a stronger bitter aftertaste than raw soy sauce (mean±SE 1.7±0.2 vs 1.2±0.3, p=0.031). Bitterness (1.9±0.2 vs 1.5±0.3) and the combined astringency-and-egumi item (1.8±0.2 vs 1.5±0.3) were p=0.063, only a trend at p<0.1.
Limitations: Astringency and egumi are normally separate items, but the authors combined them because both were perceived only extremely weakly and were difficult to tell apart; their contributions cannot be separated within the item. Each pair is 2 separate commercial products from the same maker (not the same stock before and after heating), and the heating temperature and time of each product are not given. Products with as few ingredients other than soybean, wheat and salt as possible were chosen, but Table 1 includes brands with defatted processed soybean, alcohol or mirin. The unit of comparison is 6 pairs (brand means). The vocabulary cannot be extended beyond soy sauce.
In Table 2, the term 「渋味・えぐ味」 (astringency and egumi) is operationally defined as 「渋柿などを食べた時に感じる舌が収れんする感じ，もしくは硬水やニガリの独特な味」 (in translation: "the puckering sensation felt on the tongue when eating something like an unripe persimmon, or the distinctive taste of hard water or nigari"). Bitterness is defined as 「カフェイン」 (in translation: "caffeine"), and bitter aftertaste as 「しょうゆを味わって10秒後も舌に残る苦味」 (in translation: "the bitterness that remains on the tongue 10 seconds after tasting the soy sauce"), each as a separate item; the 3 attributes were rated as separate evaluation items.
Limitations: The definition text in Table 2 itself remains a compound definition that does not separate astringency from egumi.
egumi (Japanese food descriptor) is defined in a dictionary as 『あくが強くて、いがらっぽい感じがする。えがらっぽい。』 (in translation: "Has a strong aku, a husky sensation. Egarappoi [huskily acrid].") Example sentence: 「山菜を食べたあと、のどが―・い」 (in translation: "After eating wild greens, the throat is egu-i.")contextual
Scope: Digital Daijisen, 「蘞い（えぐい）」 (in translation: "egui"), sense 1 (as republished on Kotobank)
Note: The headword's kanji spellings are 「蘞い／醶い」 (in translation: "egui / egui (alternative kanji)").
Verbatim: 『あくが強くて、いがらっぽい感じがする。えがらっぽい。』 (in translation: "Has a strong aku, a husky sensation. Egarappoi [huskily acrid].")
Limitations: The print original (Shogakukan's Digital Daijisen) itself was not checked directly; only the reprint on Kotobank was consulted.
Show dataconcept-egumi —is_defined_in_dictionary_as→ (the claim sentence above)
claim: clm-w59a-daijisen-egui-sense-taste / type: cultural / updated: 2026-09-04
egumi (Japanese food descriptor) is defined in a dictionary as 『俗に、むごたらしいさま。また、どぎついさま。』 (in translation: "Colloquially, cruel; also, garish or over-the-top.") Example: 「―・い描写」 (in translation: "a graphic [egui] depiction")contextual
Scope: Digital Daijisen, 「蘞い（えぐい）」 (in translation: "egui"), sense 2 (as republished on Kotobank)
Note: A figurative sense used colloquially.
Verbatim: 『俗に、むごたらしいさま。また、どぎついさま。』 (in translation: "Colloquially, cruel; also, garish or over-the-top.")
Limitations: The print original (Shogakukan's Digital Daijisen) itself was not checked directly; only the reprint on Kotobank was consulted.
Show dataconcept-egumi —is_defined_in_dictionary_as→ (the claim sentence above)
claim: clm-w59a-daijisen-egui-sense-colloquial / type: cultural / updated: 2026-09-04
egumi (Japanese food descriptor) is defined in a dictionary as 『我が強くて思いやりのないさま。きつい。』 (in translation: "Strong-willed and inconsiderate; harsh.") Quotation: 「では何か…、―・い事でもお言いなしたのですかい?」 (in translation: "So then... did you say something [egui]?") (Miekichi, Kotori no Su [The Bird's Nest])contextual
Scope: Digital Daijisen, 「蘞い（えぐい）」 (in translation: "egui"), sense 3 (as republished on Kotobank)
Note: A quotation from Suzuki Miekichi's 「小鳥の巣」 (in translation: "Kotori no Su, i.e. The Bird's Nest").
Verbatim: 『我が強くて思いやりのないさま。きつい。』 (in translation: "Strong-willed and inconsiderate; harsh.") Quotation: 「では何か…、―・い事でもお言いなしたのですかい?」 (in translation: "So then... did you say something [egui]?") (Miekichi, Kotori no Su).
Limitations: The print original (Shogakukan's Digital Daijisen) itself was not checked directly; only the reprint on Kotobank was consulted.
Show dataconcept-egumi —is_defined_in_dictionary_as→ (the claim sentence above)
claim: clm-w59a-daijisen-egui-sense-character / type: cultural / updated: 2026-09-04
egumi (Japanese food descriptor) is documented in 『えご・い〔ゑごい〕【×蘞い／×醶い】［形］［文］ゑご・し［ク］「えぐい」に同じ。』 (in translation: "egoi [historical kana wegoi]. [obsolete kanji: egui / egui] [adjective] [classical] wegoshi [ku-type]. Same as egui.") Quotation: 「苦く、―・く、すっぱく…稀有な声だぞ」 (in translation: "Bitter, [egoi], sour... what a rare voice.")contextual
Scope: Digital Daijisen, 「蘞い（えごい）」 (in translation: "egoi") entry (as republished on Kotobank)
Note: 「えごい」 (in translation: "egoi"), a variant synonymous with 「えぐい」 (in translation: "egui"), is listed alongside it within the same dictionary entry.
Verbatim: 『「えぐい」に同じ。』 (in translation: "Same as egui.") Quotation: 「苦く、―・く、すっぱく…稀有な声だぞ」 (in translation: "Bitter, [egoi], sour... what a rare voice.")
Limitations: The print original (Shogakukan's Digital Daijisen) itself was not checked directly; only the reprint on Kotobank was consulted.