Umami or savory taste is one of the five basic tastes (together with sweetness, sourness, bitterness, and saltiness). It has been described as savory and is characteristic of broths and cooked meats.

People taste umami through taste receptors that typically respond to glutamates, which are widely present in meat broths and fermented products and commonly added to some foods in the form of monosodium glutamate (MSG) and others. Since umami has its own receptors rather than arising out of a combination of the traditionally recognized taste receptors, scientists now consider umami to be a distinct taste.

Foods that have a strong umami flavor include broths, gravies, soups, shellfish, fish and fish sauces, tomatoes, mushrooms, hydrolysed vegetable protein, meat extract, yeast extract, cheeses, and soy sauce.

A loanword from the Japanese(うま味), umami can be translated as "pleasant savory taste." This neologism was coined in 1908 by Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda from a nominalization of umai (うまい) "delicious." The compound 旨味 (with mi (味) "taste") is used for a more general sense of a food as delicious.

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