Dashi has been used in various dishes for many years, and has made our eating habits rich. In Japan, marine products, such as dried bonito, dried sardines and sea-weed, have been used as materials of a natural seasoning. In particular, the dried bonito is widely used as a special cooking ingredient which contains “Umami.” We studied the difference between Japanese and Chinese people in the threshold of five tastes (sweet, salty, acidity, bitter taste, and Umami), food preferences and the palatability of the “Dashi”. The surveys of the taste were conducted with 19 young people (21.0 ± 0.2) and 32 middle-aged and elderly people (64.0 ± 1.3) in Japan, and with 20 young people of Jiangsu, and 20 middle-aged and elderly people (46.0 ± 1.3) of Zhejiang in China. As for the taste threshold, although the bitter taste had a significant difference between Japan and China, a significant difference was not found concerning the other four tastes. In a food preference survey, the consistency of the foods which Chinese eat willingly was heavy and thick compared to Japanese people. As for the palatability of the Dashi, the Chinese soup (n = 15) was 4.78 ± 2.28% in Brix, 1.09 ± 0.38% in salty, and the Japanese soup (n = 25) was 4.32 ± 1.04% , and 0.81 ± 0.15% , respectively. The Brix and salt concentration of the Chinese soup were higher than Japan’s. These results demonstrated that the taste characteristics between Japanese and Chinese foods and the taste preferences of Chinese and Japanese people are different, although a large difference in the tastes other than bitter taste was not found in the taste threshold between Japanese and Chinese people.
