Sweet, bit­ter, sour, salt… and umami. The fifth taste.

Psy­chophysi­cists have long sug­gested the exis­tence of four taste ‘pri­maries’, referred to as the basic tastes. Umami is now accepted as the fifth basic taste, exem­pli­fied by the non-salty sen­sa­tions evoked by some free amino acids such as monosodium glutamate.

Umami is a Japan­ese word mean­ing savory, a “deli­cious­ness” fac­tor deriv­ing specif­i­cally from detec­tion of the nat­ural amino acid, glu­tamic acid, or glu­ta­mates com­mon in meats, cheese, broth, stock, and other protein-heavy foods. The action of umami recep­tors explains why foods treated with monosodium glu­ta­mate (MSG) often taste “heartier”.