In 1908, Kikunae Ikeda, a professor of chemistry at the Imperial University of Tokyo, was studying the strong taste of seaweed broth when he discovered a new taste beyond the classics: sweet, salty, bitter, sour. The name of this taste is umami (in Japanese it means "flavorful") and it specifically refers to the taste of sodium glutamate, found in meat, cheese, and generally in protein-rich foods.