Farm grows genuine wasabi, not the dyed horseradish we’re used to
Story by Linda DuBois • Photos by Lori Eanes
Electrical contractors Jeff Roller and Tim Hall were eating a sushi dinner after work one night in 2010, when the conversation turned to the pungent green condiment on their plates. “You know, this wasabi we’re eating isn’t really wasabi,” Hall commented. “I didn’t have a clue,” Roller says, referring to the fact that what most Americans call wasabi is instead a concoction of horseradish and green food coloring, often flavored with mustard powder or other spices—not the traditional Japanese rhizome. Unlike horseradish, a root, wasabi is a plant stalk that continually creates new leaves at the top and loses old leaves, like a palm tree trunk. When ground into a paste, it gives diners’ nasal passages a similar blast of heat, but quickly fades to a milder, sweeter aftertaste. Looking back on that dinner, Roller says that simple comment by Hall sparked an idea that led the business partners into a whole new adventure. “During the recession, we were getting underbid for a lot of electrical work and were growing more and more frustrated and we kept saying we needed to have a niche, a specialty,” Roller recalls, “and then we just kept thinking about wasabi.” So, they researched and learned that hardly anyone was growing it commercially in the United States. “We started going around to restaurants and asking the chefs, ‘If we could grow real wasabi, do you think we could sell it?’” Hall says. “And they always said, ‘Yeah, because it’s really hard to source—but I don’t think you’ll be able to grow it in California.’”
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