Umami Sensitivity

Your result, the one DNA position behind it, and what the research says.

6/10 confidence.

About Umami Sensitivity

Umami is the savory taste of glutamate, the compound that makes parmesan, tomatoes, soy sauce, mushrooms and cured meat taste deep rather than merely salty. It is detected by a receptor built from two proteins working as a pair, TAS1R1 and TAS1R3. This variant swaps one building block of the TAS1R1 half at position 372. Studies measuring recognition thresholds, the weakest solution a person can correctly identify, have found the genotype here shifts where that threshold sits.

Good to know: The umami receptor is built from two proteins working as a pair. Recognition threshold is about detection, not about liking. The threshold measurements here come from small sensory panels, which is a different kind of evidence from a large population study.

Fun fact: Umami was proposed as a basic taste by Kikunae Ikeda in 1908 and was not widely accepted in the West until the receptor was found almost a century later.

Discovery: Associations between this position and glutamate recognition thresholds were reported by Raliou and colleagues in 2009.

The Variant

The single variant behind this trait

Gene: TAS1R1

Variant (rsID): rs34160967

Location: Chr 1:6,575,246

dbSNP rs34160967

The studies

Genetic and molecular basis of individual differences in human umami taste perception (Shigemura N et al., PloS one, 2009)

Factors affecting detection of bimodal sour-savory mixture and inter-individual umami taste perception (Miranda AM et al., Food quality and preference, 2021)

Other lifestyle traits

Floral Scent Perception: A change in a single smell receptor that decides whether the violet-like compound in many flowers, fruits and perfumes registers strongly or barely at all.

Sweetener Bitterness: A change in a third bitter receptor, studied for why some people taste a bitter edge in sweeteners.

Salt Taste: A change in the tail of the TRPV1 gene, studied alongside salt taste perception and how much salt people add.

Back to All Traits

Content updated September 2026.

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