Why Michelin-Starred Chefs Are Paying Premium For One Of Korea's Rarest Seaweeds | So Expensive
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Gamtae is one of South Korea's rarest seaweeds. For centuries, this earthy, sweet seaweed was mainly harvested and eaten raw by locals in the Seosan region. Today, thanks to the efforts of Ju-hyeon Song and her family business, Badasoop, it's become a hit among Michelin-starred chefs in South Korea and abroad. But with gamtae's unpredictable harvests and rising prices, turning this small industry into a thriving business presented a challenge. So how did Ju-hyeon take gamtae from local delicacy to worldwide sensation, in spite of everything? And why is it so expensive?
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Why Michelin-Starred Chefs Are Paying Premium For One Of Korea's Rarest Seaweeds | So Expensive
I wasn’t expecting a BI video to hit me in the feels, but the “she’s working hard on what I couldn’t do” at the end really made me realize how proud of his daughter that guy is
thank you If my father wasn't around, I wouldn't have even started this, so I love my father very much and am proud of him!
@@TVSEAFORESTTV 🥹
Machines and AI can easily replace this job.
@@silentstormstudio4782emm no
Thanks for watching!
What a trailblazer. In 2014 her sales were zero. She literally created the gamtae industry herself by educating and reaching out to chefs.
It’s nice when business insider actually focuses on the insides of businesses rather than trying to be a news source.
Coz it's not a news channel 😂
@@birennaik1626 Fox News is an 'entertainment' channel and yet they operate as news.
Isn't is nice to recognize when you aren't being misinformed for money or agendas?
it's always "here's this super rare, delicate, traditional thing" and then always followed by "disrupted by climate change"
I love the sweet smell of industry. I'm mongolian btw.
to be fair this isn't a rare seaweed. They literally have to remove it by the bucket in coastal harbours in the Yellow Sea every spring. A lot of what is said in this video is incorrect.
It's called Ulva Prolifera.
@@shestewa6581whats rare is the production of the end product i'm guessing
I mean, it's came from nature, of course it would be affected directly by the climate.
If they talk about things like plastic products, then maybe not.
Funny how they refuse to utter a word about positive things that can/will happen from a slight change in the climate. They only say 100% negative things when any educated scientist/biologist/ecologist knows that there's always both pros and cons to a change. Wonder why it's always 100% negative? Hmmmm.... almost like there's an agenda and a narrative they need to push. What about a place like Canada where crops can potentially be grown a little farther north as well as the current farms having an increase in biomass production? It will tremendously benefit their economy with food production. Why have you never heard stuff like that? Because it would break the brainwashing...
We were given some Gamtae by a Korean family. Enough to make korean gimbap with Gamtae several times. So good.
Gamtae gimbap is one of my favorite dishes.
Omg i ve never imagined gimbap with gamtae before. That sounds new but expensive tho 😭😭
Definitely my favorite series from Business Insider. Love the narrator's voice as well. So calming for me.
Thank you! ❤
@q_ayyah, i dont mean to be rude, but could you read me goodnight stories, please? Your voice is very calming, and i am always extremely happy, when i hear you
my teacher talks like this.. she teaches history and it makes me sleep not by the boringness but the calmness; "he cuts the enemy's throat and shouted we will not surrender" she chuckle a bit
Thanks for watching!
@GD-wh4mj 💀
So thin it looks like green sea silk
'Green sea silk' That's a beautiful expression. 😆
Gamtae is very very VERY delicate ingredient.
When its fresh its more sweeter but if you left it on room temperature for long period of time color turn from green > black > yellow > white and it gets very bitter.
Best way to eat it is roast it lightly but if you put too much heat it will turn bitter too
It may be delicate. But that's probably what makes it so delicious.
This is literally one of the very rare BI videos where the farmer/harvester/factory worker are actually getting paid good instead of some higher upper corporate suit because that happens to be the owner doing the hard labor as well.
It's because South Korea is not an African or South Asian (Pakistan and India) country. They value their workers and they are paid accordingly. Technically, India could do the same but they are too ignorant or care very little about the wellbeing of their workers. And, well, if they die you can always replace them on the same day.
Actual first world country moment
"When I started local people could afford it, now they can't!"
The irony of consumerism
local people can literally go collect it for free
@@DevinCrenshaw-jt7bwDepends how local they are, and how healthy they are. I can't imagine old grandma's traveling 2 hours and trudging through the flats. Not
@@Quizack you seriously underestimate the power of ajummas
@@DevinCrenshaw-jt7bw To a point, I agree. Some of those old ladies are super fit for their age
바다숲 감태랑 수연면 애용하고있어요 부녀의 감동 스토리가있는 자연의 먹거리가 글로벌푸드로 사랑받고있다니 참 자랑스럽네요~~더욱 널리 알려지길요^^
"Gim" (or "Nori"; Porphyra), "Parae" (Ulva lactuca) and "Gamtae" (Ulva prolifera) is commonly known kinds of seaweed laver, but the real gourmet is the "Mesenghi"[/mae-seng-i/] (Capsosiphon fulvescens). It has even more concentrated 'sea-flavor' (which seaweed-haters do not like) and silkier texture (therefore very physically fragile and delicate) than gamtae. Sadly, Mesenghi is only produced during several weeks during winter and their production is quite limited. Recently adopting freeze-drying techniques, mesenghi is distributed broader than a decade ago.
It’s nice when business insider actually focuses on the insides of businesses rather than trying to be a news source.
Neat! I lived in Korea 10 years ago and hadn't heard of it. I lived in an interior mountainous province, so I definitely wouldn't have heard of something so localized to this region. If I ever get the chance to go back and visit, I'd love to try it!
it only became popularlized about 7~8 years ago! now it's quite available anywhere in Korea
It would have been much better if you had used "gim" along with "nori" considering you introduce "Korean seaweeds".
감태를 세계에 알린 송주현 대표님 멋져요! 회사원일 때 제게 피아노를 배우셨는데, 그때부터 남다른 학생이셔서 참 멋있다고 생각했는데, 감태로 이런 놀라운 성과를 만들어내시다니 존경합니다.
바다숲 감태가 세계인들이 다 보는 유튜브에 소개되어 넘 자랑스러운데요!! 진짜 귀하고 고급재료인 감태~ 건강을 위해 자주 챙겨먹고있어 더 반가워요^^ 요즘 감태수연면도 자주 먹고있어요~ 쫄깃 탱글한 면이 넘 맛있어요👍🏻
I love Gamtae. For everyone who haven’t tried Gamtae: Gamtae tastes similar to seaweed (Nori) sheet - but it tastes much earthier and fishey, not in a bad way, in very fresh way. That earthy taste from very fresh oyster is somewhat similar. If you use Gamtae in substitution to Nori sheet in any recipe, it just makes the dish the next level. Very flavorful.
I was given Korean seaweed and noodles as a gift
I truly appreciate the work and dedication that goes in to harvesting it
That's a proud dad!❤ I'm so hapoy for them and their community. Looking forward to enjoying a gamtae dish soon!
I would love to visit for a season to harvest and process it. I'd be coming all the way from Houston, Texas, and yall could call me the seaweed cowboy if the ceo would welcome and have me🤠 I love sustainable aquaculture, and I find the process of harvesting such beautiful seaweed fascinating. As a fishmonger by trade, I'm used to that cold wet work as well. What a cool video!
Nice
seaweed cowboys 😭😭😭
You are always welcome seaweed cowboys!!! However, you must be firm in your resolve. 😁
@@TVSEAFORESTTVThat cowboy coming out there would make a great video. 😂
Pure complement for great foods around the world.
Great video honestly and an applause for the seaweed lady
Love their Father-Daughter relationship and that it grew into a successful business!
Not gonna lie, I love seaweed. I would definitely buy this just to eat it and mix it with whatever I cook.
감태 함 먹어봐야겠네요 😃
- I wish I knew what the brand she sold was so I could specifically buy from her.
1:27 Badasoop 바다숲
Thank you for your interest in our Sea Forest brand. In Korean it means badasoop(바다숲) and in English it means seaforest 💚
If you are in the United States, you can purchase it through the Kim'c Market site.
@@TVSEAFORESTTVThanks. I'm going to buy from you. My son would LOVE it.
Gamtae: what nori wishes it could be
Japan: What Korea wishes it could be
@@Official-OpenAI what's that got to do with it? I'm just talking about artisanal dried seaweed papers, why you gotta bring your whatever this is into it?
@@nopenopenopenope4076 Why are you getting so defensive. Its okay its all jokes isn't it?
@@nopenopenopenope4076 nori sheet is all about the method of grilling the sheet the texture is so different and I don’t think any one knowing how to cook Japanese food would replaced nori with Gamtae. Not unless they grilling it to give the same consistency ( not just dry it ) even that so with the different flavor profile I doubt it would ever be a replacement. It’s like you’re saying pork wanted to be beef 🤷♀️
I love seaweed waffers and one day I'd love to see these on a shelf... Instead of letting that liquid run into a drain during the straining process, they should make a juice of it.
Thank you for your good opinion. I'll think about it.
Love the stuff
Can’t wait to see the family super rich in a few years
really cool to see an ingredient that i did not even know of and i lived in korea for a third of my life! really cool to see!
it's cool how that one chef described it as a white truffle of the ocean ^^
lowkey they should play music while collecting this seaweed it’d make me work 10x faster
Great video, but I have an issue with the narrator continuously calling gim "nori". Yes, it is called nori in Japan, but this is Korea, where we call it gim.
She’s speaking English. Nori is known as nori in English like Gamtae is known as Gamtae in English. People who don’t know Korean don’t know what the heck Gim is 🤷♀️
@@isomarulor Well, how about they explain what gim is, and why it's called gim in Korea vs nori. Would you watch a broadcast about Vietnamese noodles and be okay if they called it pasta instead of pho? Imagine a time decades ago before pho was well known, and someone called pho Vietnamese pasta.
Nori isn’t english. Seaweed is english. Nori is japanese. Gim is Korean.
@@sharkracer Nori is a borrowed word in english ( words that we have absorbed from another language). It is the English equivalent to gim. Kind of like the word croissant, we won't call it rolled butter bread, we call it croissant with our own pronunciation. I'm sure Korean also has a lot of borrowed words from English and other languages.
@@eshnaprasad449 you call a croissant a croissant because you don't have a word for it in English. Not to mention, a croissant is french. Nori is not Korean, not the word and not the actual product.
I love you guys and the videos you create especially when it deals with food, or Japan or Korea. And when it’s both I can’t wait to watch them. Like the one on real wasabi and other ones. Or the one about the Japanese Ink Stones❤
제가 애용하는 바다숲이 소개되니까 너무 반갑네요!! 좋은 먹거리는 이렇게 여러사람과 알고 함께먹어야 더 빛나죠❤️
Just got my girlfriend to order some Badasoop Gamtae from Coupang to bring to Qatar for my friends and I to try!
I think i saw another docu (yrs ago) where the dad was the focus. Awesome work
This was so interesting😊
I feel like everyone is paying a premium for everything right now
Seaweed is one the best thing that can help us to attain the sustainability goal
Not really, the carbon emissions from production are equal to or just below that of methane emissions by US meat farmers 🤦🏻♂️
"You vil eat ze green sludge an you vill be happy"
Sorry, but I'll stick to my 1st world steak and veggies, that actually make sense to mass-produce. Please take your cockroach curry somewhere else👍
@@Ncryptiion No possible way this is true.
@@Ncryptiion lol
@@lynxia1464nice. People like you are the reason the world is cooked rn
Hope to try this at my next visit.
I love the name Badasoop. It means "Ocean Forest"
in Philippines we call it "Lumut", we found it in muddy river.
So cool it’s super nice to see new cuisine
평소 자주 사 먹는 바다숲 감태가 소개되니 빈갑네요. 요즘엔 감태면에 빠져서 감태면 자주 먹고 있습니다.
Have tasted it, its really good for those who appreciate the taste of sea weed. It is very fragrant..sweet, rich taste..
자랑스럽습니다👍
Now I need to order the gamatae conchiglie at Francie!
Reading these comments is uplifting. Thank you for spreading love!
Where can I buy this Gamtae?
Why are you calling it Nori when you can keep it all standard by calling it Gim?
more viewers will know "nori" than "gim" though that's changing as korean cultural purchase increases
because not everyone's a hipster.
바다숲 감태~ 좋아요~!
Korean "Gim" is quite different goods from Japanese "Nori" with the taste, thickness/density, making process, history, quality etc. (A.K.A, The seaweed goods which America has imported from Korea increasingly is not Nori, but Gim.) You'd better have called it Gim rather than Nori for making a documentary about local Korean stuff.
Koreans just take whatever is Japanese, and change the name so that its "theirs". Just cause you decide to use a different type of seaweed, sure it will taste different, but the idea is all taken from the Japanese nori. There's no need to feel offended. Besides I like snacking on Korean nori as its saltier and has a good oil fragrant to it.
@@Official-OpenAI According to old Korean and chinese documents, It is estimated that eating seaweed in Korea began during the Three Kingdoms period(~7C), and Gim farming begun at least before the 11th century, and Gim in the form of black paper became widespread at least before the end of the Goryeo Dynasty of Korea(~14C). Hamel, a Dutchman who drifted to Jeju Island in 1653, also recorded that he ate black paper. On the other hand, both Nori farming and the black paper shaping of it became widespread only in the 18th century in Japan. In addition to that, Salting and oiling Gim is a recipe that originated in Korea separately from Japan. That's why I mentioned Korean Gim is different from Japanese Nori in various aspects.
@@classicofVic Japan nori records go all the way back to the Taiho record in 703 AD lol. Nice try though.
@@Official-OpenAIIf this argument is valid, then most “Japanese,” things originated in China. Starting from Kanji, Shodou, etc.
I prefer to call it Korean style seaweed or K-style Nori. Calling Gim will be less marketable since most people would have no idea what it is.
It looks like ocean’s hair
excellent effort. sustainable.
When I was a kid, we called it mermaid hair
Gam Tae is my favorite seaweed!! Soft flavorful and yummy!!
Plz don't let foreigners know Gamtae. There is not even enough for Koreans to eat!!!
🤣🤣🤣
Yes ocean moss is good.
So good
Good 😊👍
We have the same seaweeds here in France, we just don't harvest those ones. Not yet.
바다숲 감태 품질 좋은건 알아줘야해요∿! 항상 재구매하는 곳이에요! 너무 맛있습니다∿!
~$210/kilo for something that requires that much labor to harvest is not that bad of a price honestly.
This stuff looks good - i wonder what the flavor is like?
It’s like an Oceanic White Truffel taste
I tried Gamtae... It taste like spongebob
It is not in business insiders best interest to bring the triangle to social media; knowledge is the enemy of oppression.
Can someone tell me the name of the narrator ? Her voice is so soothing that she can make poison the most expensive or sought after product on the planet! 😅
My name is Qayyah ❤ thanks for watching and listening!
@@q_ayyah thank you for responding Qayyah ❤️feels good to add a face to your therapeutic voice
So that's how Scotch Brite is made, I had no clue
감태 맛있어서 자주 먹어요
Why dont restaurants just go out get it themselves 😂
Amazing
That peak harvest time of '6 hours per day' just makes me wonder how much I'm worth ya know?
Now that this is published publicly, next time she goes to harvest her product, there will be 1000 chinese old ladies taking it all and sending it back home.
I wonder if they can planted it to more areas to lessen the price fluctuations (due to it being rare..)
3 years thats crazy i bet 3 weeks and you'd be perfect
Not trying to be a negative Nancy here but look at 2:09 . The industrial ship/factory behind where this seaweed grows looks toxic. Have people done tests on this stuff to see if it has any drawbacks? Seaweed is already known to easily absorb metals from contaminated areas.
Anyways, this is still pretty resourceful
Gamete is very sensitive to the environment. If the environment is not favorable, they will die.
I know this seaweed is very exclusive and frankly quite expensive, but I cannot for the life of me, stomach its taste and texture. Feels (and probably tastes) like a lump of wet moss in your mouth - I had it as a miyeok-guk soup. Definitely an acquired taste. My Korean wife loves it to the moon tho.
김 가격도 튀는데... 이제는 감태 가격까지 오르는 거냐!!!
It looks like edible fabic, kind of like a light green colored abaca silk.
it's like the algae that we feed on our milkfish😅
3 years to master spreading it out into sheets? I feel that this skill could be learned faster.
i really love these kind of videos. but damn the narrator speech is so sharp. the SSSS. tone it downnn!
I like the voice of English reader ❤
I think so too. 😍
Thank you 🌈
Omg, the rarest seaweed in korea, is my number one fishing bait for rabbit fish here in Indonesia, i wonder can i sell it to korea 😅
Not same dumb
daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang there gonna jack up prices
500,000 sheets per year and $16 for 8 sheets, they are grossing a million dollars annually.
looks like something from my aquarium that I hate
harvests it for free makes it super thin then charges $100+ for seaweed lmao typical korean food
Translation is not quite accurate. When describing the flavor she states that it is both “sweet and bitter” and “sweet and tangy”
That shh looks like Spyro gyra, didn't know you could eat that
Reupload?
why are they calling 'nori' for gim?
gim is the original name
I wonder if it can be turned into kimchi?
cool
Start doing back exercises and be sure to do strength training/stretching. You’re overusing your back, but it’s easy to fix with proper fitness
Hmm why not take the mud, put it in large wooden crates. Expose it to the sea water regularly, but cool it throughout the year?
Green hair algae?
Nemesis of most aquarists..
is gamtae popular in the market? i wonder how much they earned.