Umami is a Japanese word that means ‘tasty and flavoursome’. In Japan umami is considered the fifth flavour, a taste which is not salty, sweet, sour or bitter. This new flavour was discovered by the Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda in 1908.
Ikeda was a professor at the Imperial University of Tokio, and when he was studying the famous Japanese soup called dashi, made with the kombu