2000 Volume 47 Issue 5 Pages 347-354
To investigate the effect of varieties of dried Shiitake mushrooms on their tastes, five kinds of dried Shiitake mushrooms, which are common varieties cultivated on logs in Japan, and one kind that was an ambiguous variety and cultivated on sawdust substrate beds in China were collected in 1994, 1995 and 1997. The differences among the six kinds of Shiitake mushrooms with respect to water absorption and browning during soaking were traced. Among the mushrooms cultivated on logs in Japan, one variety had a tendency of low water absorption and it browned slightly but one cultivated in China was rapidly browned. After rehydration followed by heating, the chemical compositions were measured for free amino acids, lentinic acids, 5'-nucleotide (5'-AMP, 5'-CMP, 5'-UMP, 5'-GMP) and RNA contents. With respect to these chemical composition, the changes of different varieties of dried Shiitake mushrooms in various rehydration time and temperature were similar to the previous papers, but contents of the same chemicals were differ among the varieties. The same variety mentioned above that was cultivated in Japan was characteristic one and it had little increase of free amino acid significantly and had a tendency of little accumulation of 5'-nucleotide. The other hand, the one cultivated in China had high contents of lentinic acid and RNA significantly. Moreover it tend to have a large increase of free amino acid and 5'-nucleotide.
