English 'umami' is borrowed from Japanese 'umami' (旨味, pleasant savoury taste), coined in 1908 by chemist Kikunae Ikeda from 'umai' (delicious) + 'mi' (taste) — a word that waited nearly a century for Western science to catch up with the taste it described.
A savoury taste considered one of the five basic tastes, characteristic of broths, cooked meats, fermented products, and foods rich in glutamate.
From Japanese 'umami' (旨味 or うま味), meaning 'pleasant savoury taste,' coined in 1908 by the Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University. He formed the word from 'umai' (旨い, delicious, savoury) + 'mi' (味, taste). Ikeda had isolated glutamic acid from kelp broth (dashi) and recognized it as the chemical basis of a distinct taste that was neither sweet, sour, salty, nor bitter. Key roots: umai (旨い) (Japanese: "delicious, savoury"), mi (味) (Japanese: "taste, flavour").
Western science resisted accepting umami as a basic taste for nearly a century. Ikeda published his findings in 1908, but English-language taste science maintained the four-taste model (sweet, sour, salty, bitter) until 2002, when specific umami taste receptors were identified on the human tongue. The word 'umami' entered mainstream English only after Western science finally confirmed what Japanese cuisine had recognized for a hundred years