Kokumi - Sixth Taste or Sixth Sense
Over the last decade public and professional awareness of the fifth sense (Savoury or Umami), has grown alongside the ever-increasing ways we can purchase and consume this fundamental element within world cuisine. Going back to early neanderthal tribes realising that cooked meat tasted better than raw, the Maillard reaction imparted on the cooked food acting as a flavour enhancer long before the invention of adding salt, herbs or ‘Smokey Texan meat rub’!
The list of Umami products on sale in your local supermarkets are steadily growing with Waitrose hailing umami as ‘the prevailing profile in our food’ for 2022, backed up by the rising sales of its Cooks’ Ingredients Umami Paste (sales were up 17 per cent in 2021 compared to 2019). Products characterising Umami include anchovy paste, garlic, black olives, red wine, wine vinegar, Parmigiano Reggiano and porcini mushrooms – all evoking the umami sensation in our mouths.
The story behind its discovery in 1908 is as rich and satisfying as the products themselves. It all starts with the Japanese chemist, Kikunae Ikeda, who given the opportunity to travel and work in Germany within the world leading laboratory at Leipzig University, packed his bags and set sail for adventures unknown.
Majoring in physical chemistry, he studied for two years under Professor Wilhelm Ostwald, who would go on to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909. Ikeda was surprised at the physical size and nutritional conditions of German people at the time and developed a strong desire to improve the nutritional status of Japanese people back home. Tasting tomatoes, asparagus, meat and cheese for the first time while in Germany, and through these experiences he sensed that another basic taste was present in foods aside from the four currently recognised tastes of sweetness, sourness, saltiness and bitterness. This realisation would prompt his later research into umami (savouriness). After a brief spell in the UK he returned to Japan in October 1901 taking the position of professor at the Imperial University in Tokyo.
Ikeda's discovery of umami was initially inspired, in the spring of 1907, by a bundle of kelp brought home by his wife, Tei, intended for use in preparing dashi cooking stock—a central ingredient in Japanese cuisine. Upon sampling the kelp, he noticed that the same unique taste discovered in the tomatoes, asparagus, meat and cheese he had eaten in Germany was unmistakably present in the kelp dashi as well.
Since ancient times, the common belief was that there were four basic tastes—sweetness, saltiness, sourness and bitterness—and that any other tastes encountered, were the result of mixing combinations of these four. However, Ikeda found that the taste he encountered in the kelp dashi was different than any of the established four and was confident that he had discovered a fifth basic taste. Using his position and the facilities at the university, he caried out experiments aimed at the extraction of the umami factor from kelp, through which he discovered that glutamic acid was a central element in the taste of the dashi.
Ikeda pursued the commercialisation of the primary umami element glutamic acid in the form of an umami seasoning product. Realising that it had the potential to solve the problems of insufficient nutrition among the Japanese people- this became his calling as a scientist.
Based on his findings that glutamic acid was the primary source of umami taste, he developed a production method for his monosodium glutamate (MSG) product, submitted a patent application in April 1908 for "the production method for a seasoning whose primary ingredient is a glutamate," and received patent approval on July 25 of the same year. In recognition of this achievement, Ikeda was officially selected as one of the “Top Japanese Great Inventors.”
In 1909, backed by Suzuki Pharmaceutical- ‘Ajinomoto, a taste seasoning’, was launched onto the Japanese market with remarkable success. 
Through the 30’s, 40’s & 50’s, this table condiment expanded into food markets worldwide, with American becoming the 3rd largest importer of the product due to companies such as Campbell’s and Heinz using it to enhance the flavour of its products.
In the 1960’s, Suzuki Pharmaceutical (Now named Ajinomoto Co., inc) were producing upwards of 4,000 tons of MSG worldwide, contributing over 30 million yen of revenue to the company.
However, in the spring of 1968, public opinion changed when the New England Journal of Medicine published a letter to the editor from Robert Ho Man Kwok, a Chinese-American doctor. In the letter—published under the headline “Chinese-Restaurant Syndrome”—Kwok wrote:
For several years since I have been in this country, I have experienced a strange syndrome whenever I have eaten out in a Chinese restaurant, especially one that served Northern Chinese food. The syndrome, which usually begins 15 to 20 minute after I have eaten the first dish, last for about two hours, without any hangover effect. The most prominent symptoms are numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and the back, general weakness and palpitation. The symptoms simulate those that I have had from hypersensitivity to acetylsalicylic acid, but are milder. I had not heard of the syndrome until I received complaints of the same symptoms from Chinese friends of mine, both medical and nonmedical people, but all well-educated.
Kwok goes on to write that the cause is obscure. He hypothesizes that the reason for his symptoms could be the soy sauce since some people are allergic to that, it could be the cooking wine since the symptoms resemble the effects of alcohol, it could be the monosodium glutamate used to great extent in Chinese restaurants, or it could be the high sodium content of the food. Kwok, who was a senior research investigator at the National Biomedical Research Foundation in Maryland, admitted that he lacked personnel for doing research in this area, but wondered if his friends in the medical field might be interested in seeking more information about this peculiar syndrome.
This article was picked up by a number of doctors and scientists and in the subsequent weeks, months and years, MSG became a poster child for unhealthy additives in food.
The use of MSG plummeted, along with Ajinomotos profits, forcing the company to pivot heavily into other forms of revenue.
But this is a blog about Kokumi I hear you say…true. However, we need to understand the back story to put this new sense into perspective.
Fast forward to 1985, to a scientific convention held in Hawaii, attended and funded by Ajinomoto Co. and its scientists, focused on active ingredients and compounds in food. The most significant outcome of this meeting of minds, being the classification of umami as the official fifth taste. A clever re-branding of MSG which, to this day, suffers the historical baggage of its 1960’s de-throning, despite being scientifically vindicated of its perceived health risks. Over the following 35 years or so, Asian ingredients have become the norm in most western store cupboards. We can identify umami in a great number of products produced around the world and it has been the buzz word thrown about at many a dinner party by the self-certified ‘foodie’ in the room!
So, this brings us right up to current day and the proliferation of Umami in every day culinary lexicon. Finally, Ajinomoto Co. are in a position to shout about the virtues and benefits of this ingredient and its uses, across all food products, in an ever-sensitive market towards high levels of salt, sugar and fat. The hard work on Umami has now been done, we use it everyday in miso, tomato concentrate, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and various branded ‘Umami bombs’. So what next? Where is the next big thing?
Up steps ‘Kokumi’, meaning ‘mouthfeel-taste’ or ‘rich-taste’, (Ajinomoto learning from previous branding mistakes), is not actually a taste at all but an impression of flavour most associated with slow cooking and aging processes, in essence ‘time’. It is found in ingredients such as parmesan, fish sauce, scallops and even beer. Best described as that deep flavour you get from a casserole that has been gently cooking all day or a ripe cheese that’s been sitting in a cave for the last 9 months. Without wanting it to sound like an 80’s rock ballard…this is ‘the taste of time’.
Acting as a flavour enhancer, Kokumi, has been narrowed down to a group of amino acids that react with calcium receptors on your tongue. These compounds can be used to ‘turbo charge’ food without the need for conventional flavour enhancers such as fat, sugar and salt. Research has suggested that certain compounds (γ-glutamyl-valyl-glycine) has a sensory activity 12.8 times stronger than glutathione, a compound regularly used to enhance umami flavours in food manufacturing. The researchers are suggesting, this could be the answer to our reliance on unhealthy salts, fats and sugars without compromising on our need for perceived flavour.
All this research is once again being spear-headed by Ajinomoto, if proven…or at least persuaded, any ingredient that comes from this (if well branded…no acronyms this time), manufacturers and restaurants alike will be clambering over themselves for such a product. This would be a huge financial success for the business and quite possibly a miracle band-aid to world obesity problems.
The stakes are high, so far Kokumi can only be identified as a sense of flavour…extremely hard to bottle that. But I have no doubt someone, somewhere is trying. With billions of dollars up for grabs, I suspect, they are very well funded, have the support and historical knowhow to identify, manufacture, market and launch such a product. As with most things…time will tell.