From Japan to the world

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Japanese professor and scientist Dr. Kikunae Ikeda started down a path toward a discovery that would revolutionize global nutrition and gastronomy. While tasting foods such as asparagus, tomatoes, cheeses, and meats, Ikeda was intrigued by a common taste among them. It was something different—neither sweet, sour, bitter, nor salty. He called this taste umami, a Japanese word that means “delicious” or “savory.”

Dr. Kikunae Ikeda perceived umami most intensely in dashi broth, traditional in Japanese cuisine, prepared with dried seaweed (kombu), bonito flakes and/or dried shiitake mushrooms, and identified the amino acid glutamate as responsible for conferring this taste. In 1908, he extracted crystals of free glutamate from kombu (the base of dashi). From this extraction, a large-scale production technique was developed to make umami accessible to everyone, making people’s diets more pleasant and delicious. This substance is available under various brands, such as AJI-NO-MOTO®.

In 1913, Shintaro Kodama, lead disciple of Professor Ikeda, identified the nucleotide inosinate as an umami substance in katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes).

In 1957, Dr. Akira Kuninaka discovered the nucleotide guanylate as an umami substance present in dried shiitake mushrooms.

From 1908 onward, umami crossed Japanese borders, winning over palates in the world’s most diverse cuisines. The fifth taste began to spread widely, gaining visibility among chefs, home cooks and, of course, the scientific community. From there, institutes, organizations, and information and research centers dedicated to umami were founded.

In 2000, umami was scientifically recognized. A study published in Nature Neuroscience confirmed the presence of specific receptors for umami on the human tongue, classifying it as the fifth basic taste of the human palate.

Today, knowledge about umami is included in official textbooks used in schools throughout Brazil.