Across China: SW China's misty mountains produce spicy wasabi fortune

This photo taken on July 8, 2025 shows a view of a wasabi field in Putao Village, Longshe Township, Pengshui Miao and Tujia Autonomous County, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. (Xinhua/Zhou Bintao)

CHONGQING, July 15 (Xinhua) -- Every morning, freshly-cut wasabi departs Pengshui Miao and Tujia Autonomous County, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, in cold trucks. After reaching a factory, the wasabi is washed, trimmed, sliced, checked twice, flash-frozen and then stored.

"One production line handles two tonnes an hour," said Chen Xiaolong, executive director of Chongqing Chun Weilai Industrial Co., Ltd. Once this process has been completed, the frozen wasabi travels by cold chain to buyers at home and abroad.

However, about three decades ago, the only green cash crop in this region was tobacco. The scenario changed when Lai Minghui, chairwoman of the company, visited the area.

During her visit to Pengshui, Lai happened to notice that its cool and shaded mountain valleys were likely to be a good fit for wasabi's picky needs.

Wasabi does well in temperatures ranging from 8 to 20 degrees Celsius, favors altitudes of around 1,200 to 1,800 meters and prefers dappled light, according to Lai. The slopes above Pengshui, which belong to the Wuling mountain range, meet most of these needs.

Wasabi also has a clear economic advantage over traditional cash crops. "Wasabi is a treasure trove. Its roots, stems, leaves and flowers are all edible. Furthermore, wasabi planted in December last year can be harvested in several rounds from April to July and late September this year, as well as April next year," Chen explained.

The net profit per hectare of flue-cured tobacco is just one-fourth of that of wasabi, Chen added.

Starting in 1988, Lai began small wasabi planting trials, but the poor roads and lack of reliable cold storage options back then forced her to abandon her ambitions.

Lai, notably, did not give up this wasabi dream. Between 2004 and 2018, she studied wasabi cultivation methods, while improved roads and preservation technologies also emerged, prompting her to try again on two hectares of land seven years ago.

Weekly field visits and experimentation, such as developing stronger roots via floating trays, warming seedlings in pit cellars, soil fumigation and the use of homemade organic fertilizer, gradually resulted in a simple, reliable wasabi standard.

In 2020, she offered local farmers a deal -- her company would supply seed, fertilizer, film, know-how, set a floor price and sign purchase contracts, while farmers would be responsible for producing crops. "Farmers grow it and we purchase it," Chen explained.

The first three hectares of wasabi planted in Changsheng Township of Pengshui earned roughly 180,000 to 225,000 yuan (25,210 to 31,512 U.S. dollars) per hectare in 2021. Currently, there are more than 66 hectares of wasabi across Pengshui -- which is expected to generate sales income of about 6 million yuan.

"We now have 21 wasabi growers in our village, with a total scale of 33 hectares. Since the end of May this year, the entire village has been harvesting wasabi," said Wang Daihua, Party secretary of Putao Village in Longshe Township.

The wasabi experiment in this region is no longer just agricultural. A short drive from the fields, technicians in lab coats pipe wasabi into soft-serve ice cream and fold it into anti-inflammatory creams.

"Besides fresh wasabi, our company has already produced wasabi powder, wasabi sauce, wasabi ice cream and other products. In the future, we will also increase research and development investment in the biomedical field," Lai said. ■