Pantry
Izuri Kombu
A kombu house keeping hand-shaved oboro kombu alive since 1868.
- Founded
- 1868
Making it since
1868
Their story
Izuri Kombu began in 1868 as a kombu shop in Sakai, near Osaka. Sakai was the last stop for the trading ships that carried kelp down from Hokkaido, and the city's knife makers made it a center for shaving kombu by hand.
After World War II the company moved production to Kochi Prefecture on Shikoku to train new oboro kombu craftspeople, and its factory has been in Sukumo since 2006. Today it calls itself a seventh-generation kombu house, led by Shinji Izutani, and it is one of the few makers in Japan still producing oboro kombu by hand.
How it's made
Thick sheets of kombu, mostly from Hokkaido, are softened in vinegar and shaved by hand from the surface into fine, translucent layers. This is slower and more skilled work than machine-cut tororo kombu. The range also includes shiro-ita kombu for sushi, dashi kombu, kombu salt and kombu tea.
Why we carry them
Hand-shaved oboro kombu is rare outside Japan, and we are glad to carry it. Lay a few sheets over rice or drop them into a clear soup.
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