FEATURED ALUMNI

Jessica Zhu (GED’26)

There’s a memory Jessica Zhu has carried with her for a long time. She’s a kid again, sitting in her grandfather’s kitchen in Hangzhou, China. He’s at the stove, taking the simplest ingredients and making them deeply satisfying. When she asks him his secret, he smiles.

“鲜,” he said. Xian. The Chinese word for a deep, savory, richness — what we call umami which is one of the five basic tastes alongside sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

She didn’t know it then, but that answer would follow her across an ocean, through a new language, and into the halls of the University of Pennsylvania — where it eventually became a company. ZenBroth, a premium umami seasoning brand with a simple mission: to complement everything you eat with authentic, whole-food umami.

The Center offers many ways for alumni to connect and engage with each other and leaders in the retail industry.