Traditional Wasabi Growing in Japan
Here is a video that show the Traditional Wasabi Growing system that most people associate with Wasabi growing.
The video below shows a small operation in the Japanese mountains. When you see the amount of manual work that has gone into setting this farm up you can understand why these sort of farms are dying out. The last one to be built is reputed to be over 200 years old.
Would you like to work high in the mountains when there is ice and snow about, and your hands and feet are getting frozen by the low temperature water you are working in, even in the summer?
As you can see from this video there is only a walking path to this Traditional Wasabi Growing Farm. So all the rocks to make these growing beds would have to be carted up the mountain, and then carefully fitted together so that the first lot of water through does not collapse the whole thing.
The other thing is that all the harvested wasabi must be manually picked and then carted down the mountain to be cleaned up and made ready for the market.
Then back up the mountain to make the growing beds ready for the next lot of wasabi seedlings. And then the cycle repeats.
When you see this it is not really any wonder that the sons and daughters of the owners of these Traditional Wasabi Growing Farms are not keen on following the old family business. They want to be in offices or factories keeping warm and dry instead of walking up and down mountains getting freezing cold and wet on a daily basis.
Most, if not all of the wasabi grown on this type of Traditional Wasabi Growing Farm will be sold in the local markets close to the farm.
Even before the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster made a significant number of these small streams too radioactive to use for food production, there was only a tiny amount of Japanese grown wasabi available outside Japan. Most “Japanese” wasabi found on the world market is actually not grown in Japan and is purchased by the Japanese manufacturers to use in their “fake” wasabi products.
The Namida brand is 100% Pure Wasabia japonica rhizome only. This is the only wasabi product on the market that is true to label (as tested by EU Government Laboratories), is GMO free and does not contain any additives of any kind.
[…] This plant has a very strong taste and it is the root has been used as a seasoning for many centuries. Known as “Japanese horseradish,” this plant originally grew and still goes grow alongside modified stream beds in Japanese mountain river valleys. Here is a video of those Japanese wasabi farms. […]