Last year I had the pleasure of testing the Hana Umami Red cartridge, which turned out to be something very unique and outstanding.

Hana Umami Blue continues the strong legacy of Hana manufacture, providing a sheer authenticity of reproduction that easily delivers an enticing, involving, and intimate music reproduction.
Umami
When you indulge in a culinary experience and enjoy an unmistakable taste sensation, you encounter umami*. It is the harmonious fusion of certain ingredients that creates a synergy that elevates the flavor beyond the individual components. Some of the world’s most delicious and memorable gastronomic encounters possess the elusive umami quality. Masao Okada-san, Hana’s brilliant cartridge specialist, reproduces this experience for vinyl lovers by artfully combining materials and techniques to create the Hana Umami Blue, a handcrafted MC cartridge that offers an unparalleled level of musical richness and intensity.

In the tradition of Hana’s “Brilliant and Gorgeous”, the Hana Umami Blue cartridge aims to offer the listener a sublime experience. Hana’s E, S, and M series moving coil cartridges have been praised and awarded by critics and customers worldwide for their exceptional sound quality in their respective price ranges. The Hana Umami Blue continues this esteemed legacy, offering an even more captivating and satisfying sonic experience.
Umami Blue
The HANA-Umami Blue high-end moving coil cartridge represents the vision of master cartridge designer Okada-san, combining unique materials, classic Japanese techniques, and modern audio technology. The Auricle™ housing, exclusive to our Umami series, is CNC machined from duralumin. By sharing key components such as the precision-cut diamond needle, boron cantilever, and high-purity copper wires with the Umami Red and combining them with the Alnico magnet of the renowned Hana ML, the exceptionally musical Umami Blue is created.

This synergy in the development of MC cartridges — the fusion of specific materials, a unique cabinet design, a sophisticated generator, and meticulous, handcrafted precision – —is the prerequisite for outstanding performance.
All major components of the Hana-Umami Blue are manufactured at Excel Sound, which has a history of over 50 years. Excel’s highly skilled craftsmen skillfully assemble the HANA-Umami Blue by hand, creating an intense musical experience that enhances the HANA “Brilliant and Gorgeous” sound quality.
The Music
Whatever the genre, Hana Umami Blue Cartridge paints consistently rich and flexible soundscapes and sonic canvases with ease and authority.
As always, here are a few reference examples that underline the qualities of the Umami Blue.
Carlos Kleiber Beethoven: Sinfonie Nr. 7 Original Source Vinyl 2nd Edition

Especially when reproducing classical music, not every cartridge is an avid tracker and can follow the constant dynamic shifts, powerful crescendos, and feather-light nuances in the orchestra.
As with Symphony No. 7, the Hana Umami Blue immediately demonstrated how well and balanced it can reproduce the orchestra without altering the course of the narrative, changing the tempo, restricting the dynamics, or changing the pitch.
These qualities should be standard, but regardless of price, many pickups simply redirect the fundamentals and the timbre into something that, while pleasing, is not natural or engaging. Many cartridges can produce a certain thrill, but that euphoria disappears after a few minutes of listening, and then the spectacle of oversaturation occurs. This is another fad that many people cherish, but while it may be temporarily pleasant, in long-term listening, although it is an antipode to brittleness, it is unnatural and is one of the same fatigue symptoms as overly bright and open sound.
The Umami Blue handled Symphony No. 7 with delicacy and authority, revealing layer upon layer of the orchestral work with Hana’s customary potency, propelling, transmitting, and transporting the orchestra’s momentum to impressive effect. Umami Blue simply transitions between Vienna Philharmonic playing, splendidly conducted by Carlos Kleiber effortlessly and with metier differentia.
Umami Blue follows the same leitmotif that I have discovered in all Hana cartridges over the past few years: These micro-machines work within the music and not from the outside.
What does that mean? The Umami Blue cartridge can evoke an emotional response, bypassing the sensory gatekeepers while creating a remarkable interaction with the listener. This alone is worth highlighting and praising.
Belafonte Sings the Blues

Belafonte Sings the Blues, is the well-known record that is dear to my heart, having been introduced to it by my father at a young age. I’ve listened to this record countless times over the years, and it was interesting to observe Umami Blue revive this particular album, creating a unique connection and reviving a different kind of time capsule.
Umami Blue provided a pure musical treat that swung effortlessly, presenting the Belafonte presence not only with the full three-dimensional scope but also with the assertive, factual projection of a human being projected in front of a fellow human being, unfolding seamlessly impressive between the speakers.
With this distinctive ability, Umami Blue confirms another virtue of this Japanese cartridge, its chameleon nature, and proves time and time again that it is a music-centric cartridge.
Larry Coryell and Philip Catherine – Twin House

Twin House is another favorite of mine. Released in 1977 on Elektra Records, the album brings together Larry Coryell and Belgian guitarist Philip Catherine in a lyrical, experimental, and fiery recording.
The guitar lover will recognize the spark of Django Reinhardt across the tracks that add a very unique and inspiring enchantment. The album balances experimentation with the adept, astute interplay of two guitarists, and Hana Umami Blue not only keeps the spark alive while tracking but also delivers impressive true-to-life acoustic projection along with the album’s unique intrigue and charm.
The guitar may be seen as a simple instrument that can be reproduced and tracked with a cartridge. But reproducing the sheer amount of overtones, plucking noises, environmental influences, correct timbre, and yet the fundamental tones of the mechanical strings is by no means an easy task for any pickup.
Many low-priced or even high-priced cartridges fail to achieve this for a variety of reasons. Here, the Umami Blue fulfills its task faultlessly and with the necessary truism.
Hana Umami Blue is a different kind of cartridge. It can maintain the necessary balance of the golden trinity of timbre, color, and tone, but also deliver the portions of feather lightness that reveal the tiniest fractions of notes without shattering the decays and delays that are crucial to objective music reproduction.
The same is true of the dynamism, where, as with the piano, the guitar, when strummed and played louder, creates a complex harmonic bubble and a burst of energy that moves through the listening space towards the listener as an indivisible entity.
Hana Umami Blue accomplished this task with flying colors, continuously delivering the vivid projection of instruments.
The guitars felt like being played by real people manifesting and teleporting the duo into the listening space.
This is another remarkable, beyond-expectation feature that makes the Hana Umami Blue stand out from the crowd.
The Conclusion
Hana cartridges, under the leadership of Hiroshi Ishihara, have earned a remarkable reputation in the highly competitive and concentrated market of high-end audio cartridges in a relatively short time. These Japanese-made cartridges continue to break the threshold and force the competition to play the difficult game of matching what Hannah cartridges offer in terms of performance and ingenious value for money.
I have had the pleasure of testing some of their cartridges over the past and having known Hiroshi Ishihara for many years. He always strives for perfection when it comes to the products he takes under his wing.
The Umami Blue cartridge sits in an interesting price range between the lower and higher-end Hana cartridge models, but as you have already read in the music section, this splendid Hana cartridge delivers the music in abundance and more importantly, like all Hana cartridges, with the punch well above its given price.
The Umami Blue cartridge is remarkably well-balanced and a great tracker, capable of coaxing a tremendous amount of musical pleasure from the black grooves.
There is something unique about Hana cartridges: the way they are made and the way they sound. The focus is always above all on the music. Of course, all technical specifications are synchronized and subordinate to the performance, but the Hana main characteristic of music first remains untouched. The same goes for choosing materials and technical approaches that are so focused on pure music reproduction allowing listeners to be immediately immersed in the deeper realms of listening.
In a well-tuned system, the Hana Umami Blue cartridge can shine and show off its advantages instantly. What sets the Umami Blue apart from the other cartridges is the evenly balanced frequency spectrum without the typical frequency jumps that are all too easy to recognize even with far more expensive cartridges.

Hana Umami Blue prides itself on being made in Japan, but that doesn’t mean it mimics a particular sound imprint that has been glorified and cherished in the past. Umami Blue is a full-blooded Japanese cartridge in terms of execution and performance, showing its brilliance at every turn.
Many cartridges drive music to sound bloated and saturated. In contrast, Umami Blue dives right into the core of the music without altering its progression or shifting the timbre, tone, and color balance by adding its signature.
This is a cartridge that can please analog lovers and music lovers alike. The Hana Umami Blue follows the tradition of the Hana way; it repeatedly delivers pure musical enjoyment without distractions.
Unlike many contemporary cartridges, the Hana Umami Blue is not an archetypal analog micro machine or a product of serendipity. Umami Blue aims to strike a balance between sonic presence and emotional impact, which manifests itself in instantly engaging music playback from the moment the needle touches the grooves.
As the Hana Umami Red, the Umami Blue reaches the level of more expensive cartridges, making it a win-win for any analog connoisseur seeking more within a limited budget.


Hana Umami Blue goes the full distance and then some, without breaking a sweat and without breaking a bank. I’m wholeheartedly granting the Hana Umami Blue cartridge the unique double award, the 2024 Best Buy Award, and the Mono & Stereo Highly Recommended Product Award in one go. ❖

The Price
- € 2.499 EUR
Technial specifications
Stylus | Microline |
---|---|
Cantilever | Boron |
Magnetic Circuitry | Pure Iron/Cryo Treatment |
Coil Wire | High Purity Copper |
Output Level | 0.4 mv |
Output Balance | 0.5/1kHz |
Trackability | 70 µm/2g |
Channel Separation | 30dB/1kHz |
Frequency Response | 15-50,000Hz |
Coil Impedance | 8Ω/1kHz |
Suggested Load Impedance | > 80Ω |
Magnet | Alnico |
Vertical Tracking Force | 2g |
Cartridge Weight | 10.8g |
Body Material | Duralumin (A7075) |
Body Finish | Melamine Thermosetting Process (MTP) |
Warranty | 2 years |
Spec Sheet |
Contact
Youtek Limited 17-6
Higashi Kishi Urawa
Saitama Japan 330-0054
Mobile +81 80-1062-3126
FAX: +81 48-811-1779
Mail: ishihara@pc4.so-net.ne.jp
Website: www.youtek.jp