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Umami (??, Umami?) is one of the five basic tastes sensed by specialized receptor cells present on the human tongue.[1] The same taste is also known as xianwèi (traditional Chinese ??; simplified Chinese ??) in Chinese cooking. Umami is a Japanese word meaning savory, a "deliciousness" factor deriving specifically from detection of the natural amino acid, glutamic acid, or glutamates common in meats, cheese, broth, stock, and other protein-heavy foods. The action of umami receptors explains why foods treated with monosodium glutamate (MSG) often taste "heartier". In as much as it describes the flavor common to savory products such as meat, cheese, and mushrooms, umami is similar to Brillat-Savarin's concept of osmazome, an early attempt to describe the main flavoring component of meat as extracted in the process of making stock. Umami was first identified as a basic taste in 1908 by Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University while researching the strong flavor in seaweed broth.[3][4] Ikeda isolated monosodium glutamate as the chemical responsible and, with the help of the Ajinomoto company, began commercial distribution of MSG products.
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