With Japanese rice prices going crazy, can California rice win over our Japanese taste-testers?

It’s a ‘90s flashback as Calrose rice as soon as once more steps into the highlight in Japan.

After a few years of near-zero inflation, costs for shopper items at the moment are rising quickly in Japan. Rice, particularly, has develop into what financial thinktanks name, when utilizing scholarly terminology, “stupidly costly.”

Up till a few yr in the past, if you happen to went to the grocery store in Japan to purchase a five-kilogram (11-pound) bag of rice, you’d discover loads of choices round 2,000 yen (US$13.25). Some is perhaps costlier, particularly premium manufacturers or pre-washed varieties, and a few is perhaps just a little cheaper if the shop was having a sale, however for probably the most half, you possibly can get a five-kilo sack of rice for about 2,000 yen.

However now?

As you possibly can see within the above photograph, the value of rice has skyrocketed, with five-kilogram luggage now within the 3,500-to-4,000 vary. When costs first began taking pictures up final summer season, many assumed that the trigger was poor harvests from the earlier yr, however even after 2024’s crops got here in final fall, costs didn’t come again down, and a few consultants say the true root of the issue is Japanese authorities agricultural insurance policies which prohibit how a lot rice farmers can produce as a way to preserve costs excessive.

Regardless of the motive, the value of rice doubling inside a yr is a serious concern for individuals in Japan, the place rice is the core of many meals. So when our Japanese-language reporter Seiji Nakazawa went to the shop and seemed on the rice part, he was very intrigued when he noticed this.

It’s not simply the two,980-yen value that makes that five-kilo bag of rice totally different from the others, it’s its nation of origin too. That lower-priced selection is Calrose rice, and the “Cal” half comes from “California,” the place Calrose rice is grown.

In contrast to the long-grain rice usually grown in Western nations, Calrose is a medium-grain selection that’s thought of to have many similarities with Japanese rice. As a matter of reality, Calrose rice had a quick interval of fame in Japan again within the ‘90s, when a home rice scarcity in 1993 led to elevated imports of the California rice.

▼ Calrose rice, grown in California, USA

All else equal, cheaper is clearly higher when grocery buying, however was all else actually equal right here? There was just one option to discover out, so Seiji purchased a bag of Calrose and introduced it again to SoraNews24 HQ for taste-testing.

Opening it up and searching on the raw grains, he couldn’t see any visible variations from the Japanese-grown rice he’s spent his entire life cooking and consuming.

Calrose doesn’t require any distinctive cooking technique, both, so Seiji simply whipped up a batch within the rice cooker in the identical method he at all times does. Popping open the lid when the cooking cycle was completed, as soon as once more it seemed similar to a pot of freshly cooked Japanese rice.

Then it was time to scoop some right into a bowl…

…and provides it a style.

So what’s Seiji’s impression of this culinary customer from California?

“Visually, I don’t really feel like there are any variations between Calrose and Japanese rice, and after consuming it, I nonetheless don’t really feel like there are any variations. From the fluffy texture to the aroma and sweetness, that is precisely what I anticipate Japanese rice to be like, and I’m actually shocked by it!”

If he’s actually pressed to discover a distinction, Seiji would say that Calrose feels barely much less chewy than a few of Japan’s premium-priced home rice varieties like koshihikari and yumepirika. Once more, although, that’s not a distinction between Calrose and Japanese rice, however a distinction between Calrose and premium Japanese rice, which can be the identical distinction that’s current between most sorts of Japanese rice and the nation’s premium varieties. Particularly if he was consuming in a restaurant, the place the rice was accompanied by different dishes, Seiji is for certain he wouldn’t have the ability to discern any distinction between Calrose and Japanese rice.

Completely impressed, Seiji subsequent determined to get the opinions of the remainder of our Japanese-born-and-raised crew that was within the workplace that day, so he dished up a serving for every of them.

There have been various skeptic faces within the group, with a number of members telling Seiji that he’d dished up too giant of a portion for them, and that they’d simply have a single style. Nonetheless, he gave them every a beneficiant serving…

…and the cleaned plates are testomony to how many individuals ended up agreeing with Seiji’s constructive evaluation.

“This tastes and feels precisely like Japanese rice,” mentioned fellow reporter Ahiruneko. “It’s so a lot better than I believed it was going to be,” added Go Hatori. Go, it seems, has really tried Calrose earlier than, however that was fairly a while in the past. “It’s so a lot better than the California rice I attempted a very long time in the past, and nearly solely the identical as Japanese rice. Should you needed to say what’s totally different, it’s just a little drier than Japanese rice, however this might be good for ochazuke (rice with inexperienced tea poured over it) or fried rice.”

P.Okay. Sanjun was fast to leap in with “I believe calling it ‘drier’ will give individuals the fallacious impression. It’s not dry like Thai rice is. I’d say it’s possibly just a bit much less chewy than Japanese rice, but when I have been consuming Calrose in an informal restaurant with different dishes as a part of a set meal, I completely wouldn’t have the ability to inform the distinction between it and Japanese rice.”

The lone dissenting opinion got here from Mariko Ohanabatake. “I don’t actually just like the aroma and texture very a lot. In comparison with costly varieties like koshihikari, it doesn’t have as a lot chewiness. However I don’t assume Calrose feels totally different from the type of Japanese rice they serve at chain eating places.”

There’s at the moment no signal that retail rice costs are going to be coming down anytime quickly in Japan, so in the intervening time Seiji, and lots of different members of our crew, are blissful to have this lower-cost different.

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