Seaweed is a general term for the many different types of algae and plant life that grows in the ocean there are said to be some eight thousand different types of seaweed around the world but you don't find seaweed on the menu everywhere mainly in fact in Japan Korea and China I've come to the city of kitsune which is in Chiba Prefecture just east of Tokyo this is a region which is particularly rich and seaweed even on a global scale and it's the mixture of warm and cold currents busting rocky coasts which provide ideal conditions for seaweed to flourish seaweed is so popular in Japan that you'll rarely sit down to the table without it being included in some form be it a students or soup or whatever it's used in many many different kinds of Japanese cuisine let's start off with a look at some of the more common kinds of seaweed in Japan around 1,500 different species of seaweed are found in Japan more than in most other countries among these species more