Japanese Words for Describing Taste and Flavour: Amai, Karai, Shoppai and Beyond

The five basic tastes

Japanese teaches children five tastes, and all of them are ordinary i-adjectives. Amai is sweet, suppai is sour, nigai is bitter and shoppai is salty. The fifth, karai, is where learners stumble: it means sharp or hot on the tongue and covers chilli heat, wasabi heat and, in older usage that survives in many dialects, strong saltiness. Because of that overlap, shoppai has become the everyday word for salty, and karai now mostly means spicy, but you will still hear shio-karai for an over-salted dish.

Each adjective has a matching noun ending in mi: amami is sweetness, karami is spiciness, sanmi is acidity, nigami is bitterness and shioke is saltiness. Cooks and menus use the nouns: karami o tsuyome ni, with the spice turned up, or sanmi ga aru wain, a wine with acidity.

Rich or light: koi, usui, assari, kotteri

Once you can name a taste, the next question is how strong it is. Koi means strong, dark or concentrated: a koi coffee, a koi sauce, an intense broth. Usui is the opposite, thin or weak: a usui tea, a soup with too little seasoning. When a dish has too little flavour of any kind, aji ga usui or aji ga shinai, it has no taste, is the honest verdict.

Assari and kotteri are about richness rather than strength. Assari food is light, clean and low in fat, a compliment for fish, vegetables and clear soups. Kotteri food is rich, oily and heavy, a compliment for tonkotsu ramen, pork belly and cream sauces. A broth can be koi without being kotteri: a strong clear shōyu ramen is koi but assari. Ramen shops often let you choose, and the phrase when ordering is assari-me de, on the light side, or kotteri-me de, on the rich side.

Umami, texture and temperature

Umami is a Japanese word and is used in Japanese exactly as in English: a savoury depth that comes from dashi, kombu, soy sauce, miso, aged cheese and ripe tomatoes. People say umami ga aru or umami ga tsuyoi, and the highest praise for a soup is dashi ga kiite iru, the dashi comes through. Koku ga aru means it has body, and fūmi is aroma. Umai is the casual adjective for delicious, blunt and best kept for relaxed company.

Taste rarely arrives alone. Aburakkoi means greasy, not a compliment, and sappari means refreshing, what a squeeze of lemon gives you. Temperature words are atsui for hot, atatakai for warm, tsumetai for cold, and nurui for lukewarm, the complaint word for beer and soup. Texture sound words such as sakusaku and mochimochi have their own post on this site; here you only need yawarakai, tender, katai, tough, and shokkan, texture.

Praising food at a restaurant and at someone's home

In a restaurant, the compliment goes to the staff, and the standard phrases are short: oishii desu when the server checks on you, totemo oishikatta desu on the way out, and gochisōsama deshita at the counter, which thanks the cook for the meal. One specific word turns a formula into a real compliment: dashi ga kiite ite oishikatta desu, or kono tare, koku ga arimasu ne, this sauce has depth. Staff at small shops remember customers who notice.

At a home the stakes are higher, because someone cooked for you. Say itadakimasu before eating, comment on one dish early, ask about it, and finish with gochisōsama deshita. Questions are compliments in themselves: kore, dō yatte tsukuru n desu ka, how do you make this, tells the cook you want the recipe. Second helpings, okawari, are a compliment too. If you are the cook and a guest praises you, deflect gently with tada no katei ryōri desu, it's just home cooking.

Complaining without offending

Japanese diners rarely send food back, and direct criticism of a host's cooking is out of the question. The tools for complaining are soft: chotto, a little; kamo, maybe; watashi ni wa, for me; and the sugiru ending that turns an adjective into too much of it. Chotto shoppai kamo is already a strong statement in a Japanese kitchen. Watashi ni wa chotto karai desu blames your own tolerance and lets a host offer something else without losing face.

In a restaurant, a genuine problem such as cold food or the wrong dish is fine to raise. Sumimasen, kore, chotto nurui n desu ga, excuse me, this is a bit lukewarm, gets a fresh plate. A too-strong bowl can often be adjusted: aji ga koi node, sukoshi usumete moraemasu ka is a normal request at a ramen counter where hot water is kept for exactly that. Never use mazui, bad-tasting, in front of the person who cooked; it is the word for talking about a meal afterwards with friends.

Taste words at a glance

The first table collects the basic tastes and the strength and richness words. The reading column gives the romaji you will hear; menus usually show these words in kanji or hiragana.

Shibui is the dry, puckering astringency of over-brewed tea or an unripe persimmon; its second life as a compliment meaning understated comes from the same idea of restraint.

Aroma, mouthfeel and temperature

This second table covers the words that travel alongside taste: how a dish smells, how it sits in the mouth, and how hot it arrives. After it, the list gives the sentence patterns that put every word in this post to work.

• Adjective plus desu for a plain comment: karai desu, shoppai desu
• Adjective stem plus sugiru for too much: amasugiru, koisugiru
• Adjective stem plus me de when ordering: assari-me de, karame de
• Aji ga plus adjective for overall seasoning: aji ga koi, aji ga usui
• Noun plus ga aru for a quality: umami ga aru, koku ga aru, sanmi ga aru
• Adjective in te-form plus oishii to praise: amakute oishii, sappari shite ite oishii
• Noun in sa-form plus ga chōdo ii to praise judgement: karasa ga chōdo ii

Common mistakes with taste words

The first mistake is using karai for salty when you mean spicy or the reverse. A learner who says karai about a salty miso soup will be understood, but a listener may reach for chilli oil. Keep shoppai for salt and karai for heat.

The second is confusing the strength pair with the richness pair. Koi and usui are about how much seasoning there is; assari and kotteri are about fat and heaviness. Calling a delicate but well-seasoned clear soup usui is a mild insult to the cook, when you meant assari, which is praise.

The third is over-reporting. Native speakers say one specific thing and then oishii. A running commentary of every taste sounds like a judge on a cooking show. Pick the word that stands out, say it once, and ask a question about the dish instead.