Sea Grapes

Sea grapes, Caulerpa lentillifera, is a species of edible green algae native to the shallow coastal waters of the Indo-Pacific, distinguished by its trailing stems bearing tight clusters of small, round, fluid-filled beads that resemble bunches of grapes. Long harvested and, increasingly, farmed in coastal ponds across the Philippines, Japan and other parts of Southeast Asia, it is eaten raw as a crunchy, briny delicacy known in the Philippines as lato and in Japan as umi budo, meaning sea grapes.