It’s not often you get the chance to visit a Wasabi Farm, especially in the UK, so when a call went out to members of the Guild of Food Writers to sign up, I was first in line.

Based in Hampshire, outside the village of Micheldever, the Wasabi Company’s farm, is located near bubbling brooks, on repurposed watercress beds. They still grow watercress too, but they have diversified to also include wasabi. The leaves are grown under protective black netting that keeps them shaded from the sun’s rays. Traditionally in Japan it grows alongside shady riverbanks high in the mountains. It is notoriously difficult, and indeed slow, to grow taking around 18-24 months until the rhizome is ready to harvest. There are two big planting periods from October/November then spring time when it is all hands on deck to make the planting run smoothly.

John Old, the farm’s affable owner, kicked off the proceedings with some background into the history of wasabi. It is native to Japan and archaeological remains have dated the first signs of consumption as far back as 14,000BC, most probably for medicinal purposes, instead of food. The word ‘wasabi’ however dates from the seventh century in Nara Prefecture. In the middle ages, recipes in Japan show Buddhist temples adding wasabi to cold soup and it is also mentioned in Japan’s oldest book of law stating that wasabi could be used to pay taxes.

We set off to see the plants close up starting with the young plants, which were on raised, well-drained gravel beds with fresh water gullies running in between their neat rows, similar to the traditional methods of natural mountain streams.

We then went on to the more mature plants who were almost ready to be harvested. We learnt that the whole plant can be used – not just the rhizome (which grows above the ground not as a root) but also the leaf stems and leaves, which we were all encouraged to try. Little delicate white flowers can be seen around March and April and these too can be added as garnishes or eaten raw or fried in tempura batter. The leaves and stems were delicately peppery with less of a pungent kick than the rhizome itself – which we enjoyed later with our lunch.

One of the highlights of our day, was being able to harvest a plant ourselves. Chaperoned by Josh and Leigh, we had to delicately ‘tug’ at the lower part of the leaf stems, near, but not on, the rhizome, gently manoeuvring it from its soil cocoon. There were squeals of delight all round, admiring the sizes of our rhizomes.

We learnt how to clean up the rhizome before we were able to try some with our amazing lunch spread that they had very kindly laid on for us all.

I was fascinated to read the chemistry behind wasabi and how the flavour peaks after 3-5 minutes after grating or chewing.

Whilst lunch was being prepared we also got to taste a wide range of products that the company offers – many of which have great taste award stars (all stars are given through rigorous blind tasting) and it is a huge accolade to receive 1,2 or 3 stars. You can see the full breadth of their  products here. 

A highlight for me was: ‘Sanbaizu – pure rice vinegar with delicate flavours of bonito and kombu.