Umami, as an alimentary taste, is an indicator for the presence of valuable amino acids or oligopeptides. Umami substances, including free amino acids, nucleotides, peptides, organic acids and their derivatives, are widely distributed in foods. They usually improve the overall taste of food such as modulating sweet taste, enhancing salty taste and suppressing sourness and bitterness. Though umami receptors have been discovered, the evaluation of umami intensity with sensitivity and selectivity is nevertheless a challenge because of its multivariate taste characteristics in complex food matrix source. Based on the available literature, this review summarized the distribution traits in food sources, taste characteristics, evaluation approaches and the related investigations. In further studies, with advance in the field of materials, microfluidic and nano-technologies, new evaluation approaches should be designed with the advantages of fast, sensitive and selective, and allowing more structurally versatile umami (enhancing) ingredients would be elucidated from raw food materials.

作为一种营养品味，鲜味是有价值氨基酸或寡肽存在的指示。鲜味物质，包括游离氨基酸，核苷酸，肽，有机酸及其衍生物，广泛分布于食品中。它们通常改善食物的整体味道，例如调节甜味，增强咸味并抑制酸味和苦味。尽管已经发现了鲜味受体，但由于其在复杂食品基质中的多种口味特征，以敏感性和选择性评估鲜味强度仍然是一个挑战。本文根据现有文献总结了食物来源的分布特征，口味特征，评价方法及相关研究。在进一步的研究中，随着材料领域的发展，