Supposedly its super expensive,
I found this site selling half a pound for 25$....
Is that about right?
1/2 Pound 100% Real Wasabi Paste (Made with 100% real Wasabi)
Half-pound 100% Real Wasabi Paste - 6 tubes (43g each)
Our high quality frozen, prepared Real Wasabi paste is made to exacting standards using only the highest quality real wasabi. There is absolutely NO horseradish in our products; we do add a minimum of additives and preservatives to maintain the fresh wasabi quality of taste and color. It?s ready to use once thawed, with no labor costs to mix up inexact and imitation powders. This product has a one year shelf life frozen, and 60 days refrigerated and unopened. Once opened the product should be used in 30 days. Product is kept frozen at -10 degrees F. until shipped, shipping materials for this are one box with a styro-foam insert and freezer gel packs, shipped Federal Express 2 Day air, on Mondays and Tuesdays.
$25.95 + Shipping and Handling
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By/July 19, 2019 3:56 pm EDT/Updated: Dec. 11, 2020 10:42 am EDT

The Wasabi Maestroes have set up commercial Wasabi growing farms from the Arctic Circle to Southern New Zealand, including the Equator. They have worked with individual growers, national governments, and investment groups on four continents. These growing systems have reduced growing times by nearly 67%, improved yield and quality of the Wasabi. Real fresh wasabi in the US is considerably more expensive than the ones in Japan. Based on what I have seen, at retail or wholesale, they are sold for $50 - $150/lbs. For both Japanese (imported) and US grown wasabis. Some of the US growers are in California and Oregon including Half Moon Bay Wasabi Co., Real Wasabi and The Wasabi Store/Frog Eyes Wasabi.

Wasabi isn't one of those ingredients that inspire us to ask many questions. The addition of the green paste on your sushi plate is kind of a given. Even if most of us don't know what it is or where it comes from, we do know it packs a punch of flavor. Its pungent and spicy character is the perfect way to flavor a soy dipping sauce, and if you add too much it'll clear out your sinuses pretty quickly. As wasabi has become more mainstream, we've seen it used as a coating for peas in snack mixes and added to mayonnaise to fancy-up dishes like fish tacos. So, you might be surprised to learn that most wasabi you've encountered — even at fancy restaurants in Japan — isn't actually the real thing.

Real wasabi — derived from the plant Wasabia japonica — is rarer than you might think. This Japanese aquatic plant is difficult to grow, making it significantly more expensive than most condiments. According to the Washington Post, adding the real stuff to your sushi might add $3 to $5 to the bill. It's hard to imagine such a small component could be worth the price of an entire fast food meal, but you may be willing to pay for it once you've tasted pure wasabi. Read on to find out the facts about real wasabi — and what you've actually been eating, instead.

Most wasabi paste is fake

Cost Of Real Wasabi

A shocking number of sushi restaurants don't serve real wasabi: The Washington Post reports that as much as 99 percent of wasabi sold in the United States is fake. It's not just the U.S., either; experts estimate that 95 percent of wasabi sold in Japan is imitation, too. So, if you're not getting the real stuff, what the heck is in your fake wasabi?

It's a pretty convincing swap, especially if you don't have anything to compare it to. The wasabi you'll find in most restaurants and grocery stores is a mixture of horseradish, mustard powder, and food coloring. The nasal-clearing properties of the horseradish and mustard come together to give you the illusion that you're eating the real deal, and the food coloring gives it a green hue. Some mixtures also include cornstarch or other chemical stabilizers to help the powder thicken up like freshly grated wasabi.

Where does wasabi come from?

Real wasabi comes from grating the root-like stem (called a rhizome) of a perennial plant native to Japan, Wasabia japonica. It looks a lot like a green-colored horseradish root, and the two share similar flavor profiles, too. That's because wasabi is a member of the same Brassica family as horseradish and mustard — the main reason why using horseradish powder as a substitution works so well.

The perennial plant originated along cold mountain streams and rocky river beds in Japan. The earliest mention of wasabi is in the Honzo Wamyo, an 18-volume medical dictionary written in 918 AD, indicating that the plant may have been used for medicinal purposes. In the 1800s during the Edo period, its modern-day use as a seasoning for sushi became popular, and the rest is history. Although it's still grown in Japan, there are several wasabi farms outside Asia, including New Zealand, North America, and the UK.

Wasabi notoriously difficult to grow

You might wonder why you've never seen a wasabi plant, considering it's been around for so long. It might have something to do with how difficult the plant is to cultivate. In fact, BBC once called it the 'hardest plant to grow,' and making mistakes can become very costly for wasabi farmers. The seeds themselves are almost a dollar each, and they often don't germinate. The plant is super picky about its environment, and if it's exposed to too much humidity, too little water, or the wrong nutrients, it will wither and die.

It's not impossible to grow, though, and many plants do make it past the germination stage. The next hurdle is overcoming fungal disease and stem rot, conditions common among plants grown in wet conditions. Even if everything goes well and disease is avoided, it can take as long as three years for the plant to mature. All that adds up to less wasabi supply than the world-wide demand, jacking up the price and making it unattainable for most.

Once you've had it, you can taste the difference

After hearing about how difficult the plant is to grow, you might wonder if it's even worth it. The green-dyed horseradish mixture is pungent and hits you with a nasal-clearing effect as soon as you take a bite. If you've ever had real wasabi, you know that it is spicy, but it's not that hot. It has more of a plant-like, herbaceous flavor/odor combination that the Art of Eating describes as having 'fresh, green, sweet, fatty, fragrant, and picklelike' odors.

Chemical and Engineering News explains the science behind what you taste when you take a bite of wasabi (fake or real). Several enzymes are released when you grate horseradish or wasabi roots, including one known as allyl isothiocyanate (AITC) that's responsible for creating the sensation of heat. Because horseradish has more AITC, your palate perceives it as spicier. In a 2003 study, researchers went on to find that wasabi contains more volatile compounds than horseradish, giving it a more complex flavor. Instead of just being blasted by spicy flavor, real wasabi has a smoother, cleaner taste that won't overtake delicate fish as you eat it.

The leaves of the wasabi plant are also edible

Although the wasabi rhizome contains the most concentrated flavor, the entire plant is edible. The plant itself is beautiful, growing to about two feet tall with long, crisp stems that shoot above the ground. The heart-shaped leaves get as large as a small dinner plate and are common additions to salads or stir-fry dishes in Japan. The most popular use of the wasabi plant is a pickled dish popular in Shizuoka Prefecture called wasabi zuke. The recipe utilizes chopped up stems, leaves, flowers, and groundstalks that are pickled by mixing them with salt, sugar, and sake lees (a byproduct of the sake brewing process).

The wasabi plant can be eaten raw or cooked, but the components taste spicier if they're raw. Cooking them results in a spinach-like flavor. The leaves don't last as long as the rhizomes (seven days in the refrigerator versus the rhizome's two-month shelf life), so plan to cook them up quickly if you can get your hands on these prized items.

Real wasabi costs quite a bit more

The wasabi served with sushi in a restaurant is easy to pick as a fake: It's provided (usually free) on the side of every plate. It would

How Much Money Does Real Wasabi Cost