Abstract: Umami taste,as one of five basic tastes,was widely favored by consumers. In recent years,the development of natural,nutritional and safety umami substances,including amino acids,nucleotides,organic acids,umami peptides and so on,have become a hot issue in the field of food flavor and a key direction in the development of umami flavoring. This review summarized the research status of umami taste and umami substances in food. Meanwhile,the new research progress in origin(such as aquatic products),characteristics,structure-activity relationship,flavormechanism,preparation and identification methods of umami peptides were mainly introduced. It was hoped that this paper could offer reference and guidance for the development of flavor condiment,the utilization of umami peptides and the study of its flavor mechanism.