‘Kanpai’ with sake masters

Dinner guests being introduced to the sake masters during the event at Kampachi restaurant, Hotel Equatorial Penang.

DENOTING the Japanese loanword umami with English-based logic is agonising.

The dictionary offers “savoury” as an explanation but that is just like saying an ocean is deep. Scientifically, umami is the taste of glutamate and nucleotide molecules which describes even less.