Or a neatly packed box of matsutake mushrooms that costs $400?

In contrast, the average value for imported matsutake is about $90 per kilogram.

Today, with the Japanese crop shrinking, 90 percent of the matsutake sold here are imported.

The price for matsutake in the Japanese market is highly dependent on quality, availability, and origin.

The body has a unique shape resembling the bud of a matsutake mushroom.

The Japanese matsutake at the beginning of the season, which is the highest grade, can go up to $2,000 per kilogram.

It has been considered an "indispensable companion" to eating matsutake mushroom.

This relationship with huge forest trees is what makes the matsutake and chanterelle so difficult to cultivate.

The annual harvest of Matsutake in Japan has since further decreased.

Fine Japanese restaurants usually charge extraordinary sums for seasonal meals with matsutake.

But the matsutake tends to have a sweeter scent.

Once he found a crop of delicious matsutake mushrooms, which grow only in pine forests.

The rising value of the matsutake has created problems with mushroom rustlers, of course.

One evening it was a small iron teapot filled with broth and the first matsutake mushrooms of the season.

To me the matsutake mushrooms taste much better cooked in broth, and the marinated tongue turned tough.

The township is particularly noted for its matsutake mushrooms, growing wild on the hillsides rather than cultivated.

They decide to go pick matsutake mushrooms.

Only one couple, toasting their first anniversary with a glass of sake, was splurging on matsutake mushrooms.

The band's former "fourth member" was music programmer Hideki Matsutake.

Unpretentious peanuts and potatoes share the limelight with wildly expensive matsutake mushrooms.

He added: "They pay premium prices in Japan for matsutake that are still really young and look quite phallic.

But most prefectures in Japan produce some matsutake on mountainsides that are sometimes guarded jealously.

The flavor of the matsutake is not nearly as intense or concentrated as that of truffles.

The edible matsutake mushroom is collected for personal and commercial use and a collection permit is required.

The yuzu ideally complements matsutake mushrooms, and is harvested in the same season, autumn and early winter.