Ikeda was a food chemist he decided to use his knowledge and skills as a chemist he wanted to know exactly what this fifth taste was he went to work in laboratory and found the answer glutamate glutamate is an amino acid that is produced when living things begin to die for example the production of glutamate happens when cheese ages or meat cook its taste is very different from the other four tastes ikeda decided to call the taste umami this comes from a japanese word that means delicious