We may earn a commission from links on this page. The wasabi most of us get at sushi restaurants, or from the store, isn’t wasabi. That green, slightly bitter powder is often made out of horseradish.

Wasabi, also known as Wasabia Japonica for the plant fanatics, is most commonly known as the spicy green paste you add to sushi, but you can use it to spice up any recipe if you have the taste for it.

Japanese cuisine gourmands keen on the snappy, nose-tingling, eye-watering bite of wasabi that accompanies sushi might not know that green daub on their plate may actually be horseradish in disguise.

I am standing ankle deep in a stream somewhere in Hampshire. I say “somewhere” advisedly, for short of blindfolding me for the final mile of the journey the owners of the Wasabi Company have done ...