Umeboshi (Pickled Ume) (梅干し)
Ume fruit salted and dried, often reddened with red shiso - the intensely sour-salty pickle at the centre of a bento.
| What it is | Ume (Japanese apricot, Prunus mume) salted, then sun-dried; red types are coloured by red shiso leaves pickled with them |
|---|---|
| Salt levels | Traditional umeboshi are around 20% salt; modern 'seasoned' (chomi) umeboshi are desalted and sweetened - the label states which |
| Place | Wakayama (Kishu) is the famous producing prefecture |
A traditional umeboshi is one of the most concentrated tastes in Japanese food: mouth-puckeringly sour and firmly salty, eaten in fragments with plain rice. The red colour is not dye but shiso, pickled alongside - the same shiso gives the pickling liquid (umezu) its colour.
Most umeboshi sold abroad today is the seasoned kind, gentler and sometimes honey-sweetened. Both are legitimate; the label's salt figure and the word 'seasoned' tell you which you hold, and the traditional kind keeps far longer unopened.
See also
ShiozukeRelated page in this guide.First shopping list
Related page in this guide.
Sources: Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), 'Traditional Foods in Japan'; JAS soy sauce standards; Umami Information Center; Kikkoman official information; Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Checked 6 November 2026.