ヤマトタカハシ 敦賀昆布館, Kelp museum in Tsuruga, Japan.
The Yamato Takahashi Tsuruga Kelp Museum was a facility dedicated to kelp and its many uses in Japanese food and industry. It displayed how the seaweed was harvested and processed, what products came from it, and offered visitors a chance to taste kelp tea and other kelp-based foods.
The museum opened in June 1987 as a corporate facility and operated its exhibitions for more than three decades. It closed in May 2022, when the impact of the pandemic made it impossible to continue running the space.
The museum displayed over 200 kelp-based products, showing how deeply this ingredient is woven into Japanese cooking and daily food practices. Visitors could see how it appears in traditional dishes and its role in making broths and seasoning blends.
The museum was easy to reach from Tsuruga Station and charged no admission fee when it was open. The layout allowed visitors to walk through the displays at their own pace and stop at the tasting areas along the way.
The museum had a theater with a large screen that showed original films about how kelp was harvested and distributed across Japan. These films gave visitors a window into production methods they would rarely see otherwise.
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