Joe: Oh, it's, like, thick.

Whoa!

Hotter than — oh, s---.

It's really spicy, Yuelei.

Oh, but it's good.

[coughs]

And these are wasabi-flavored.

Holy s---, these are hot.

Holy s---.

Welcome to "Flavor Binge."

If you're just here for the binge,

you can skip to the next chapter.

But stick around to find out what wasabi actually is.

Doesn't, does not smell

spicy at all, yeah.

Has a bit of, like, a carrot vibe to it.

Smells nice.

Smells like the stuff you're used to seeing with your sushi,

but maybe a little bit sweeter.

Raw wasab.

Yep, I'm definitely tasting it.

Ooh.

But

that's not how you make wasabi, guys.

Without a grater,

you can't break the cells down properly,

and therefore you're not releasing all the chemicals

to get all of the flavor out of it.

Wasabi stores two molecules in two separate compartments,

which mix when the plant is broken down to activate them,

kind of like snapping a glow stick.

I don't know if I can get a paste off of this,

but I'll try.

[laughs]

Yeah.

Whoa.

It's significantly hotter.

Whoo!

But there's a problem.

Most of the products you buy advertised as wasabi flavor

actually contain little, or even no wasabi.

Some experts have even estimated

that 99% of the wasabi eaten by Americans

is actually fake.

There's two main reasons for that.

One of them you'll have to wait 30 minutes for.

But the other we'll tell you now.

Real wasabi is very expensive.

A kilogram of fresh wasabi can cost up to 250 bucks.

This little piece right here is

52 grams.

What is —

so, wait, how much is that?

This is mostly due to how hard it is to grow.

Wasabi is a super-needy plant.

It can be killed by the slightest change

in temperature or sunlight.

Same.

So what do food producers do instead?

Well, they tend to use horseradish.

It's a plant from the same family as wasabi

with plenty of allyl isothiocyanate.

I've never seen one in person before.

And it looks kind of like a really thick

wizard's wand.

I'm not gonna say the other thing it looks like on camera.

Horseradish is way cheaper than wasabi.

This 200-gram piece cost me £1.85,

or about $2.45.

The same amount of wasabi would cost you $50.

This is the smallest piece they had.

Look at this.

Look how big,

ugh, this thing of horseradish is.

It's like a leg of a baby grand piano.

Let's put it to the test ourselves

and make our own fake wasabi.

It does smell pretty similar to the wasabi did

when I chopped that.

Oh, I felt that.

Do we have a hammer?

Oh, there we go.

It's hard to get a firm grasp on.

[crew laughing]

Stop it. [laughs]

All right.

Rest of this goes right in the trash.

Then we'll add a little bit of mustard.

A couple drops, right?

You think that was too much?

What do you think?

Little too green?

So, here is my homemade fake wasabi.

And it does kind of smell like wasabi.

That's exact — oof.

Ooh, I can feel it in my nostrils.

That's exactly what I would expect.

In both the US and the UK,

you can get a range of wasabi powders and wasabi pastes,

but with varying amounts of actual wasabi in them.

Don't know what we're gonna do with

a kilogram of 2% wasabi powder

after this shoot, but.

The only 100% pure wasabi powder I could find in the UK

was from a website called JustIngredients.

But it cost £844 per kilogram,

so we've decided not to buy that one.

This gigantic bag seems to have zero real wasabi

and only has horseradish and mustard

listed on the label as flavorings.

Ugh.

Woof, it doesn't smell like wasabi.

Yeah, already a much different,

a much more pleasant odor.

And just look at the pot.

You can totally visually tell the difference, right?

The hundy. Oh, yeah.

This, whoa.

It actually smells pretty nice.

That's got the strongest taste of anything I've had so far.

Yeah.

Whoa!

Whoa. 100%?

About as spicy. It was a lot earthier.

Look how happy this guy is. Look at this guy.

He's just thrilled.

He's thrilled to be here.

We all are.

We'll start with this one from S&B,

which contains just 4.5% real wasabi.

That's enough wasabi. Oh, man.

Joe: So, this is the real wasabi.

Oh, it's, like, thick.

Look at that. Look how thick this is.

Whoa!

Hotter than — oh, s---.

It's really spicy, Yuelei.

Oh, but it's good.

It's actually really good.

Then we got this one, from Yutaka,

which contains 5% real wasabi.

I learn nothing.

Mm.

Oh, gosh, that went in my nose.

Yutaka's premium version,

which contains 65% real wasabi,

which is pretty good.

[coughs]

Why does that have crunchy bits in it?

Oh, dear.

I can definitely taste the difference.

I can definitely, I can't believe I'm saying this,

but I can taste the difference.

And this one is way better.

But I do like them both.

Boy, this is really good.

I'm surprised by how much I'm liking this.

Sweet, let's try some wasabi crisps.

I've actually got really high hopes for these.

I feel like wasabi and beef would be a good combination.

We put a lot of horseradish sauce

on our beef in the UK, so this seems pretty good.

Ooh, those smell good.

They smell beefy.

The first thing I get is wasabi,

but then it kind of dissipates pretty quickly,

and then you get this beef.

There's some sweetness to it.

I don't know what's causing that.

Woof!

No.

Wait.

I hate them, but now I kind of like them.

Next up we got these "Demon Slayer" mini snacks,

which I think are little crisps

kind of stacked in a tube.

I don't know what "Demon Slayer" is.

Judging by the guy up here, it's probably an anime,

but let me know if I'm wrong.

Oh, look how little these guys are!

Look at those.

It's kind of like tiny Pringles.

Like mini Pringles.

Weaker wasabi flavor.

Quite a lot of wasabi from that.

This looks like

dried pasta.

See that?

You know, I would've said

sweet and wasabi don't go together,

but they actually kind of do.

So, I think these are very out of date.

I think that they may have gone off in March.

These are Doritos Wasabi Risk 5.0,

which I think are from Turkey.

They don't really smell of wasabi.

And they just kind of look like a standard

nacho-cheese-type Dorito.

Yeah, that was just a cheesy Dorito.

That's anticlimactic.

Turns out, once we translated the bag,

that only a couple of the ones in here

are actually wasabi-flavored and are very spicy.

So I'm going to have to basically

keep eating until I hit one.

Ah, that one was quite wasabi.

Yeah, that tasted like they've tried to put wasabi on it.

Maybe before they went off.

I definitely have got some wasabi flavor

from this bag at some point.

I just can't tell exactly where it's come from,

which is a bit disappointing.

Oh, these look like Cheetos.

Uh-oh.

Whoa!

These are super spicy.

Oh, wow.

But I kind of love them.

Yeah, dude!

Once you get used to the wasabi flavor,

like, that's kind of awesome.

Oh, it's tingling.

That was underwhelming.

Next up is these Koikeya wasabi nori potato chips,

which actually sound really good.

Ooh, great color on these.

Look at this.

That's green boy.

"A subtle combination of soft and sharp wasabi

with a touch of sophisticated mild nori."

Mm.

These are really good.

You get wasabi, but I think they're right,

it's quite a soft wasabi.

I don't even know what this, I don't even know what —

I mean, I'm assuming this is a wasabi guy.

Right?

So these are Korean wasabi snacks.

Ugh.

Take it back. This is actually really good, dude.

Like, we have crab chips.

And we have shrimp chips.

If I can recall, I've never had fish-flavored chips.

This might be the worst thing I've ever tasted.

Yuelei: Oh, my God!

It's little crabs.

Look at these guys.

If I got these regularly,

I would no problem eat this whole bag.

Wasabi wouldn't even slow me down.

Shrimp versus shrimp.

My ears are starting to ring.

I think my body is starting to fight back on wasabi.

Oh, these are like little puffs!

I don't even taste wasabi.

You, I've been looking forward to these.

I've been looking forward to these.

These look like they're popular.

I like the shrimp chips.

Taste the shrimp.

It's like, I mean,

I'm not tasting any wasabi in these, or very little.

Oh, my God.

Puffy.

Puffy crisp.

They're little puffy things!

Look at that.

My only question would be,

why would you serve that in a can

if it's not a Pringle?

Look at that.

It's like a little Cheeto thing.

Here we go.

I mostly get sweetness from those.

I don't know exactly where that's coming from.

There is definitely some wasabi, but also, again,

like, not particularly hot.

Out of all of these,

as far as wasabi balance,