旨味

Umami (旨味) means 'delicious taste' — uma (旨, 'delicious') + mi (味, 'taste'). Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda isolated glutamate from kelp in 1908 and named this fifth basic taste.

Western science recognized only four tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter. Umami was dismissed as a 'Japanese thing' for nearly a century. The taste receptors for umami weren't confirmed until 2000.

Umami is the savory depth in aged cheese, cured meat, fermented soy, ripe tomatoes. It's the taste of protein, of richness, of satisfaction.

The word entered English dictionaries in the 2000s. A century of scientific skepticism ended with the admission: the Japanese were right all along.