The plant ingredients we handle contain components that are easily soluble in water and that we used in conventional ways. However, they also contain components that are not soluble in water and therefore could not be used properly. While conducting daily research to maximize on the appeal of water and discover what could be done with its chemical properties, we succeeded in extracting and utilizing components that are difficult to dissolve in water.

In addition to the three commonly-known states of water, i.e., ice (solid), water (liquid), and water vapor (gas), the state of supercritical water is known to exist. This is a fluid that is neither a liquid nor a gas, but has the characteristics of both, and exists in a supercritical state (374°C, 218 atm). The properties of supercritical water are very different to water in other states, such as it having extremely high reactivity, and an extremely reduced dielectric constant (the ease with which electricity can pass through it). In other words, using this state makes it possible to dissolve ingredients that are normally difficult to dissolve in water.

Through our research, we have developed a technology that can effectively extract components for richness and umami, which could not previously be extracted, from the parts of the raw ingredients that are difficult to dissolve. This is High temperature High pressure Steam (HHS) technology. By heating and pressurizing it, water is used as a highly reactive and highly dense gas. This water has very high permeability and rapidly infiltrates into the raw ingredients. This effect makes it easy to extract the components inside.