Abstract
Shiitake mushrooms (Lentinula edodes) are dried for long-term storage. Most of the dried shiitake produced in Japan are cultivated on logs. The conventional shiitake-drying method has been developed for many years to improve the appearance, which is the main value standard of dried shiitake. Recently, a new drying method has been developed to expand consumption of dried shiitake. This new drying method places an emphasis on the taste of soup stock instead of the appearance, which was the focus of the conventional drying method. Shiitake mushrooms were dried by the conventional and new methods, and the contents of free sugar, free amino acids, 5'-GMP, ergothioneine, and eritadenine were compared between the shiitake dried by the different methods. The contents of some ingredients in the log-cultivated dried shiitake varied among individual mushrooms depending on the growth environment and the state of the mushrooms harvested. Therefore, the differences in the ingredient contents due to the drying method were not always common to all test lots. However, shiitake dried by the new method tended to have slightly higher contents of trehalose, glucose, 5'-GMP, and sour or umami amino acids, and slightly lower contents of bitter amino acids than shiitake dried by the conventional method.
