Hamama microgreen kit review: real grow results, and is it worth it?

We bought this kit for herbsathome.co with our own money and ran all three seed quilts through a full grow cycle, changing one thing each time to find out what the system actually depends on. Below is what happened, what came out of the tray, and the one instruction Hamama gets wrong.

A note on timing: the hands-on testing was done in 2019 and this page was updated in August 2026 with current prices and the current quilt range. The system itself has not changed. Same tray, same riser, same paper-and-coir quilt, same three cups of water, so the grow results below still describe what you get today.

Some links on this page are affiliate links, and we earn a commission if you buy through one. It costs you nothing extra and it does not change what we found.

What the Hamama kit is

A hydroponic tray built by two MIT graduates around a single consumable. You fill the tray with water, drop in a paper-and-coir sheet with the seeds already spaced inside it, and that is the entire setup. No soil, no grow light, no nutrients, no measuring, and no thinning.

The greens themselves earn the counter space. Broccoli microgreens deliver a nutritionally equivalent amount of mature broccoli using 158 to 236 times less water, in seven to nine days instead of the 100 to 150 days a Central Valley field crop needs.^[1] Cotyledon leaves also test higher in vitamins and carotenoids than the mature leaves of the same plant.^[2]

What comes in the kit, and what it costs

$35 buys a reusable grow tray in recyclable #5 polypropylene, a riser that holds the seed quilt above the water line, three seed quilts you choose yourself, and an instruction card.

The same kit with a ceramic tray is $79, and the ceramic tray on its own is $54 if you already have quilts. It is dishwasher safe, and it is the version to buy if you would rather not grow food in plastic. That tray is the main thing we asked for at the end of the original review, and it has since shipped.

A bamboo frame is $20 and fits either tray. It changes how the kit looks on a counter and nothing else.

See the current kits and prices at Hamama.

What a seed quilt is

A coconut coir sheet folded over evenly spaced pods of seed and growing medium, sealed shut and sold as a flat card.

That spacing is what you are really paying for. Sow microgreens by hand and the usual failure is crowding: seeds pile up, moisture gets trapped at the base of the stems, and a promising tray goes slimy on day five. The quilt makes sowing too thickly impossible, which is why the kit works for people who have killed everything else.

What actually grew

We picked the super salad mix, the zesty salad mix and the hearty broccoli, and grew them one at a time so each quilt tested a different approach. We are in Denver, where summer air is hot and very dry, and that turned out to matter more than anything else.

Zesty salad mix, by the book. We followed the card word for word: riser in, three cups of water, quilt pressed down for ten seconds. It grew, and it needed water again and again across the seven to ten day cycle. Before buying we had joined the Hamama Friends Facebook group and seen growers in similarly dry climates reporting the same thing, so we changed the approach for the second quilt.

Super salad mix, overfilled on purpose. Rather than top up repeatedly, we started this one with the water slightly above the fill line. The seeds took off fast and several burst straight through the cover sheet, which the zesty mix never did. Then at just under a week the cover would not peel. The extra water had bonded the quilt’s adhesive to the cover, and we ended up cutting the sheet away in pieces and damaging some of the greens doing it.

Hearty broccoli, longer soak. Same instructions as the first quilt, but instead of pressing the quilt down for ten seconds we held it under for a full minute, then topped the reservoir up whenever it dropped. This gave us the best harvest of the three.

The pattern across all three: the length of the initial soak and the topping up along the way decide the harvest. Front-loading the water does not substitute for either, and it costs you the cover sheet.

The three cups of water problem

Hamama’s card tells you to add three cups of water and nothing more. In a dry room that is not enough to carry a quilt from germination to harvest, and it is the most common complaint growers report.

Check the reservoir every day and top it back up to the fill line. A spray bottle over the quilt surface helps in very dry air, and it is also the fix if one pod is germinating behind the others. Hot rooms, sunny windowsills and forced-air heating or cooling all pull water out faster than the instructions assume.

What you cannot do is solve it at the start. Our second quilt is the demonstration: extra water on day one bonds the adhesive to the cover sheet and you lose greens peeling it off. Soak long, top up often, keep the level at the line.

Peeling the quilt back

Within 48 to 72 hours the seed pods swell visibly and sprouts start lifting the top layer of the quilt. As soon as green leaves push through, pull that top layer back to expose the growing greens.

Sometimes the sprouts break through the cover on their own, which is your cue to peel rather than a problem. Moisture is what decides whether it comes away cleanly. Too wet and it sticks, as ours did.

Harvesting and storage

Somewhere between seven and ten days the tray is ready. There are two ways to take it.

Cutting

Use scissors and trim right at the base of the stems. Depending on the variety you may be left with seed caps on the greens, and a quick rinse takes care of them.

Pulling

Grasp the stems at the base and pull. They come away easily, roots and all, and the result is heartier on the plate. It also leaves you with more seed caps than cutting does.

Storing what you cut

Hamama suggests a plastic bag with a damp paper towel. Vacuum jars work too. The method we found best is to treat them like cut flowers: stand the cut ends in a little water in the fridge and they stay crisp for several days.

One super salad mix quilt fills a large mixing bowl.

What Hamama sells now

The classic range runs to 14 varieties: hearty broccoli, energizing kale, cruciferous cabbage, sweet wheatgrass, fragrant fenugreek, earthy clover, hot wasabi mustard, spicy daikon radish, red radish, violet radish, pink radish, rainbow radish, super salad mix and zesty mix. Hamama lists the range as non-GMO and organic.

Quilts are $22 for three, $59 for nine, $99 for 18 and $169 for 36, which works out at $7.33 down to $4.69 a tray. A subscription takes at least 10% off and ships free, and you can skip or cancel deliveries from your account.

There is now an herb in the range, which was the other thing we asked for. Culinary cilantro is $24 for three, or $21 on subscription, and grows on the same tray in the same seven to ten days. Arugula comes back as a limited run rather than a permanent line, so buy it when you see it rather than planning around it.

Outside microgreens, there is a $54 green onion kit that regrows from a coco mat, and cat grass quilts for anyone who is really growing this for a cat.

If wheatgrass is the reason you are here, our wheatgrass guide covers growing it without a kit. To compare the whole approach against doing it yourself, our microgreens guide walks through the seed-and-tray route.

Getting help when a tray goes wrong

Hamama runs a help center staffed by people it calls Grow Coaches, and their guarantee is that they will replace or refund a growing experience you are not happy with. Use it. Growers who never contact support are the ones who write the bad reviews.

The Hamama Friends Facebook group is the other resource, and it is more useful than the instruction card for anything diagnostic. Photographs of what root hairs look like at day four, which is the question every new grower has, are far easier to find there.

Verdict

The system works, and for a first-time grower it is close to foolproof. The weakness we found was the instructions rather than the hardware. Three cups of water is wrong for anyone in a dry room, and nothing on the card prepares you to tell root hairs from mold, which is the first question every beginner asks.

Buy it if you want microgreens on the counter with no equipment decisions and no learning curve, and you are content paying roughly $5 to $7 a tray for that. Skip it if you are willing to buy a tray, a bag of growing medium and a bag of seed, because growing microgreens from scratch costs a fraction as much per harvest and opens up varieties Hamama does not sell.

Order the kit direct from Hamama.

If you want full-size herbs on the counter rather than microgreens, our AeroGarden Harvest review covers the closest equivalent. For choosing what to grow, see the most flavorful microgreens.

Questions & answers

Why are my microgreens leaning to one side?

They are following the light. Seedlings in a bright window bend toward it within a day or two. Rotate the tray each time you check the water and they even out.

Do I need a grow light?

No. Hamama’s greens germinate and grow under ordinary room lighting, and a bright windowsill is more than enough. This is one of the few countertop growing systems that does not need to supply its own light, because microgreens are harvested before they need much.

Can I eat the seed pods left in the tray?

Yes, once they have been rinsed. Some varieties shed more visible caps than others. A rinse after harvest deals with almost all of them.

Is that mold on my quilt, or root hairs?

Root hairs are fine, white and grow in a halo directly around each stem, and they disappear if you mist them. Mold is fuzzy, spreads across the coir between the pods rather than hugging the stems, and does not respond to water. This is the single most common false alarm among new growers.

What do I do if a quilt really does go moldy?

Throw that quilt out and work out what changed: warmer weather, a new position, a houseplant moved nearby, or water sitting above the fill line. Clean the tray thoroughly with white vinegar or run it through the dishwasher before the next quilt. If it happens more than once, contact Hamama, who will generally replace quilts that have been a problem.

How do I clean the grow tray between quilts?

Warm water and dishwashing liquid is enough for a normal cycle. The ceramic tray is dishwasher safe. Save the vinegar or the dishwasher for after a moldy batch.

Can I cut a seed quilt in half to grow two varieties at once?

You can, and some growers do, but varieties germinate and mature at different rates, so half a tray will be ready before the other half. Pair varieties with similar timings, or keep one quilt per tray.

How is this easier than growing microgreens from scratch?

A do-it-yourself setup asks you to pick a tray, a growing medium, a seed density and a watering routine, and getting any of them wrong costs you the tray. Hamama has already made all four decisions. You add water, peel a sheet back, and cut. There is almost no waste and the results are consistent from the first attempt.

References

1. Weber, C. F. (2017). Broccoli Microgreens: A Mineral-Rich Crop That Can Diversify Food Systems. Frontiers in Nutrition, 4:7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2017.00007 ↩︎

2. Xiao, Z., Lester, G. E., Luo, Y. and Wang, Q. (2012). Assessment of Vitamin and Carotenoid Concentrations of Emerging Food Products: Edible Microgreens. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 60(31), 7644–7651. https://doi.org/10.1021/jf300459b ↩︎