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Umami was first identified in Japan, in 1908, when Dr. Kikunae Ikeda concluded that kombu, a type of edible seaweed, had a different taste than most foods. He conducted experiments that found that the high concentration of glutamate in kombu was what made it so tasty. From there, he crystallized monosodium glutamate (MSG), the seasoning that would become popular the world over. Decades later, umami became scientifically defined as one of the five individual tastes sensed by receptors on the tongue . Then in 1996, a team of University of Miami researchers studying taste perception made another breakthrough. They discovered separate taste receptor cells in the tongue for detecting umami. Before then, the concept was uncharted. "Up until our research, the predominate wisdom in the scientific community was that umami was not a separate sense. It was just a combination of the other four qualities (salty, sweet, bitter, sour)", explained Dr. Stephen Roper, the University of Miami physiology and biophysics professor who helped zero in on the taste along with Nirupa Chaudhari, the team's lead researcher.
