Meet the Bay Area Wasabi Farmers Growing This Rare Delicacy
Sheree Bishop, Communications Coordinator
September 12, 2025
If you enjoy sushi, you may be surprised to learn that you’ve never actually tasted wasabi. The green paste offered at most US sushi restaurants and grocery stores is actually a mixture of horseradish and mustard, dyed with food coloring to resemble the real thing.
Outside of Japan, wasabi is hard to grow, and even harder for a regular shopper to find. There are only a few wasabi growers in the US, dedicated to making the crop available to home cooks. Now, at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market on Tuesdays (and popping up on Saturday, September 13), Half Moon Bay Wasabi is offering shoppers a taste of what they’ve been missing, grated straight from the stem of a true Wasabia japonica plant.
Becoming West Coast Wasabi Growers in California
Long before launching Half Moon Bay Wasabi in 2011, Jeff Roller and Tim Hall were business partners in an electrical contracting business, though they both had an interest in agriculture. After discovering that most of the “wasabi” served stateside didn’t come from the actual wasabi plant, they began researching how to grow it.
“Tim and I together, we would always talk about wasabi. It just seemed interesting and nobody was doing it. If we could figure out how to do it, we could probably find a market for it,” Jeff says. “We started off with just one greenhouse and had a lot of disasters and some success.”
When they first signed the lease on their greenhouses in Half Moon Bay, a coastal town about 30 minutes south of San Francisco, the structures were in disrepair from being out of use for 10 years. Jeff and Tim used the knowledge they had from years of working in construction to fix each greenhouse, one by one. They now have nine greenhouses, all originally built around the 1950s and 1960s. The plants are fed with water from an adjacent, 60-year-old well.
The True Cost of Growing Wasabi Outside of Japan
A member of the Brassicaceae family, along with mustard and cabbage, the wasabi plant is grown primarily for its rhizomes (knobby underground stems). The leafy plant naturally grows in Japan, in shaded banks near cold streams, and has been cultivated there for centuries.
The few wasabi farms that exist in the US and Canada need to recreate this environment to the best of their ability with heavy shade and running water. Often, a semiaquatic system is built inside the greenhouse on a slight slope to allow for necessary shade and water flow.
While Half Moon Bay’s cool, coastal climate offers compatible growing conditions, there are also a variety of challenges that come with growing wasabi plants. Over the 18 months that it takes for the plant to be ready to harvest, Jeff says that it’s easy for plants to get sick.
“The main challenges that we’ve had over the years are from viruses,” Jeff says, “Other plant viruses come in because we’re growing it in a nursery, and there are tons of other plants around that just carry viruses that are not lethal to their plants, but potentially are to ours.”
As a result, the price of wasabi at the farmers market may cause some sticker shock for shoppers. One fresh wasabi rhizome goes for around $40. Experienced Bay Area chefs have gladly paid for pounds of rhizomes and wasabi plants, knowing the unique, spicy, and delicious flavor they offer.
“It’s expensive because it’s really hard to grow. There’s just a lot of labor, and 20 months’ worth of rent. Leasing where we’re at is expensive. Just getting the plant starts is expensive,” Jeff says.
Despite the difficulties, the team at Half Moon Bay Wasabi continues to grow these precious plants, which are carefully nurtured without pesticides and must be harvested by hand.
Though the price is high, Jeff insists that you don’t need much wasabi to have a good experience with it. He says, “People will come and buy a small piece, and that’s enough for a sushi dinner for two.”
A Tasting Guide for Real Wasabi
To enjoy fresh wasabi at home, your rhizome needs a suitable grater. If you use a knife or a cheese grater, the wasabi won’t produce any heat or take on a paste consistency. When you visit the Half Moon Bay Wasabi booth at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, you’ll find that your free sample comes from a steel wasabi grater. At their booth in the farmers markets, they currently sell wasabi graters in partnership with Kinjirushi, a global processed wasabi company founded in Japan. You can also get similar results with a ginger grater.
With gentle pressure and quick circular motions, a fine grater will break down the stem enough to release a compound called isothiocyanate, which stimulates the nasal passages and gives a spicy kick of flavor. After the spice comes a sweet aftertaste without the burning sensation that you get from the mustard-based imitation most Americans are used to.
Jim Murphy, a co-owner who also manages the farmers market booth, suggests tasting a small piece of the wasabi after grating, and then letting it rest for five minutes before having the rest of it.
“You’ll notice that the taste changes, gets even more flavorful, and a little bit hotter. Kind of like the way a wine opens up, that wasabi will open up. And then after 20 minutes, it’ll diminish,” Jim says.
The wasabi that was once only available to local chefs is now here for culinary amateurs and pros alike to enjoy. Jim insists that both newcomers and returning wasabi lovers all get excited to try the wasabi at their new booth. Along with fresh wasabi rhizomes, Half Moon Bay Wasabi offers every part of the plant, including plant starts and more mature plants, from which both home cooks and pro chefs can cook with wasabi leaves.
“We’ve always wanted to do the farmers market,” Jeff says. “I like selling our stuff as locally as possible… And there’s just such a variety of people coming to that farmers market, it seems like it could be really cool.”
Visit Half Moon Bay Wasabi on Tuesdays at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, and on Saturday, September 13, in the front plaza for a one-day pop-up at the farmers market.