Bladderwrack Seaweed

A brown seaweed with paired air bladders running along the fronds, which is where the name comes from. Dried, and packed by hand into 2 ounce bags at our farm in Opp, Alabama.

What is bladderwrack?

Fucus vesiculosus, a brown seaweed that grows on rocky shorelines in cold Atlantic water. The bladders float the fronds up toward the light at high tide, and they are the first thing most people notice when they open the bag. It is one of the older seaweeds in Western herbal practice and it has a long record of use in coastal kitchens.

How do people use it?

Most often as a tea. Steep about a teaspoon in 8 oz of hot water for 10 minutes, on its own or added to a blend. It also goes into broth and soup stock the way kombu does, and it can be crumbled fine and used where you want a salty, oceanic note. Start small. Seaweed is strong and a little goes further than you expect.

What does it taste like?

Salty and briny, closer to the smell of a shoreline than to a leaf tea. If you have had miso soup made with kombu, you know the direction.

Where does this one come from?

We do not harvest this. Bladderwrack grows on cold Atlantic rock and there is none of that in Alabama, so we buy it in dried and we pack it here in Opp. We would rather say that plainly than let a farm-direct label cover something we did not grow. The moringa and the mullein on this site are ours. This one is not.

Anything to know before using it?

Seaweed carries iodine, and how much varies from batch to batch. If you are managing a thyroid condition, are pregnant or nursing, or take medication, that is a conversation for you and your own provider before you start drinking it. Seaweeds also take up what is in the water they grow in, which is a good reason to treat any seaweed as something to enjoy rather than something to take in quantity.