One warm morning in February, we enter Sindhudurg from Goa’s Manohar International Airport. Barely a few kilometers from the hustle and bustle of the terminal, the landscape opens up into undulating green areas.
I arrive at Coco Shambhala on Sindhudurg’s Bhogave beach – our home for the next two days, and spend the afternoon soaking in the lush greenery. It’s not until the next morning that I realize that the forest here is not only on land. It also exists underwater. Along this coast, seaweed grows in quiet abundance, forming dense underwater “forests” that act as ecosystems in their own right.
Gabriel | Photo credit: Special arrangement
India has more than 800 species of seaweed along its coast (as documented by the academic journal Botanica Marina, published by De Gruyter Brill), with a significant concentration along the Konkan. Traditionally, when washed ashore, it was collected as compost for coconut and mango trees. But it never made it into Indian kitchens. “Locals are not aware of seaweed. Most people don’t even know it is edible, so it has never been a part of traditional food,” says Suhas Malewadkar, F&B Manager, Coco Shambhala, who is also originally from Goa.
To the tide
At Bhogave Beach the next morning, the tide receded just enough to reveal the rocks and what grew along them. Waiting for us is Gabriella D’Cruz, founder of The Good Ocean, which works with local harvesters to supply chefs with food-grade Indian seaweed.
Wearing a diving suit, a sickle in hand and a mesh bag over his shoulder, he wades into the water. He carefully moves over the rocks and scans before cutting off the seaweed just above the mount – the part that anchors it to the rock. “If you take it from the base, it won’t regenerate,” he explains. Local foragers follow strict guidelines to avoid harming wildlife. They are also trained on seaweed diversity and reproductive cycles to ensure long-term conservation of the forest.
Sargassum | Photo credit: Special arrangement
What I may have dismissed as algae beginning to form as she walks us through each variety she has collected. There is an abundance of sargassum, thick and brown; sea grapes clustered like tiny green pearls; fans of dictyota and padina; and ribboned top gloss. She hands me a strand of sea grapes to taste – bursting with citrusy, salty freshness.
Sargassum, he explains, is the species he is targeting because it grows abundantly along this coast. “Most of it goes into agar, carrageenan, and sodium alginate,” he says—hydrocolloids that are quietly appearing in everyday foods. Whole, traceable seaweed for chefs just wasn’t part of the system. That’s the gap they’re trying to bridge. Today, The Good Ocean supplies food-grade sargassum for ₹1,920 per kilogram and is the only supplier to offer it in a pure, traceable form, unlike most seaweed on the market, which is sold raw.
Various seaweed | Photo credit: Special arrangement
After harvesting, the seaweed goes through a careful cleaning and drying process that keeps it for up to two years if stored in a cool, dry place. Instead of drying in the sun, they are dried in dehumidifiers that remove moisture while locking in nutrients and preventing UV damage.
For harvesters working with The Good Ocean, this growing culinary curiosity also creates a more viable livelihood. They earn about ₹100 per kilogram of freshly harvested seaweed – significantly more than the ₹14-15 per kilogram often paid for semi-dried seaweed in parts of coastal Tamil Nadu.
Harvesting takes place early in the morning when the ocean is calmer. Workers use masks, snorkels and an inflatable net ring to collect seaweed and are paid on the same day.
Sea Pantry
Later we go out to sea in a small fishing boat. Two local fishermen slipped into the water without any equipment and emerged a few minutes later with sea urchins carefully balanced in their palms.
“Sea urchins are something that people in Sindhudurg eat. They usually hold them over hot coals to burn off the spines, then they crack open and eat right out of the shell,” says Suhas.
Back at Coco Shambhala, sargassum-infused seaweed risotto sits alongside crab and ricotta ravioli topped with a light butter sauce enriched with morning sea urchins.
For Giles Knapton, founder of Coco Shambhala, the connection with seaweed runs deep. “I grew up with seaweed,” he says. His family home in Ireland was close to the beach and the seaweed was laid out on the road to dry. “You’d just take it off and eat it as it was.
For Giles, seaweed is also a sign of a healthy ecosystem, so it shouldn’t be overused. “But in small volumes like we have here, it’s sustainable.”
Guests at Coco Shambhala already have the opportunity to harvest sea urchins and learn how to cook them, and foraging for seaweed may soon become part of the experience.
From coast to plate
In Mumbai, chefs like Varun Totlani, head chef of Masque and Bar Paradox, have also started working with seaweed varieties like ulva (sea lettuce) and sargassum swartzii.
“The ocean, despite being such a big part of our geography, felt under-explored in restaurant kitchens,” he says. Seafood ingredients have built-in saltiness, umami and texture. “They respond directly to tides, weather and geography, which means you can’t impose too much on them.”
Seaweed risotto infused with sargassum | Photo credit: Special arrangement
Seaweed is also starting to find its way into bars. “Seaweed has a very distinctive flavor profile—intensely spicy and can border on slightly fishy—so it tends to be a love-it-or-hate-it part of drinks,” says Pankaj Balachandran, founder of Boilermaker Goa, Quinta Cantina and The Lab Goa. “We’ve already experimented with it in cocktails, including a seaweed martini with cocoa liqueur.” Instead of making it the dominant flavor, they used it subtly as tinctures or bitters to add layers of umami.
In many ways, the story of Indian seaweed is about learning about something that has been around for billions of years.
Published – 31 March 2026 10:34 IST
