Scientists are hunting for the sixth basic taste

In 1908, Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda was studying the active substances in kombu (seaweed), when he made a discovery that would change food science forever. Ikeda realized that a compound called glutamic acid was what gave seaweed such a distinct savory and meaty taste—nothing like the existing basic tastes of sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. He dubbed that taste umami.

Yet even though people have been eating seaweed, mushrooms, miso, aged cheeses, and fermented foods for ages, it took nearly a century of scientific debate for umami to be recognized worldwide as the fifth basic taste. It wasn’t until the 1990s that it gained universal recognition —and only after extensive psychophysical, electrophysiological, and biochemical studies that confirmed it was unlike any other existing ta