It wasn’t that long ago that Kikunae Ikeda, a chemist at Tokyo Imperial University, claimed to have discovered a new taste, a certain savouriness which he called umami.

Now, Japanese scientists have identified a possible sixth sensation, a ‘rich taste’ called ‘kokumi’.

Confusingly, kokumi doesn’t actually taste like anything. Instead, it’s more a feeling, which can be described as a perceived richness and roundness that heightens the other five tastes and prolongs their flavour.

The ‘taste’ can be found in both Eastern and Western cuisine where it naturally occurs in aged and fermented foods like alcohol, soy sauce, fish sauce, bread, chicken soup and shrimp paste.

It explains why slow-roasted meats taste better than their quickly cooked counterparts or why aged cheese is much more delicious than the freshly-made variety.

Despite having an identifiable effect, scientists have had trouble pinpointing kokumi because it is not achieved with a single molecule, rather, it is activated by glutamyl peptides that occur naturally in fermented and aged foods.

Kokumi has been the subject of scientific study since the 1980s in Japan, when seasoning company Ajinomoto Co. first managed to isolate the kokumi peptides and turn them into a tasteless powder.

Because of its powdered form and its ability to enhance flavours, it is feared that kokumi may develop a bad reputation like MSG.

Senior food scientist Lauren Kliman commented: “For food scientists, it is frustrating that ingredients including MSG and kokumi are looked at negatively because they are generated in a lab.”

“It’s not like this is some new synthetic class of compounds that we’ll add to foods. They exist naturally in food already. So it’s just a matter of isolating them and putting them in higher concentrations,” she said.

While kokumi is still the subject of research, it is believed that when it hits the market it will do so in a big way.  “After all, people are always looking for more delicious food,” Kliman said.