Ikeda’s Discovery of Umami

It was the year 1907. At the Tokyo Imperial University, the professor Kikunae

Ikeda was eating dinner with his family. Everyone was eating dashi broth when

all of a sudden, the professor stopped eating his broth; he was amused! He realized the

soup was more delicious than normal. After giving it a few stirs, he realized his

palate was getting a different flavor from the addition of kombu. This realization

of taste not only made him the greatest inventor but also one of the most discussed topics

of history. He was a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Tokyo.

He started a project to find unacknowledged flavor in the dashi broth that he had with his family.