[apeescape]

Isn't Japanese rice pretty different to Costco rice? Genuine question.

[treefarmer]

Yeah, as someone who started with Costco rice and slowly moved up the quality chain, there is a clear difference in taste between even average Japanese rice and most Costco rice. It would be interesting to see a price/quality comparison between the U.S. and Japanese Costcos though.

[makeitdouble]

This is one of these case where cross-country comparison might bring little relevant information.

Another example could be wine sold at US Cosco vs French Costco. It would be an indicator of something, but I'd personally be lost if I had to interpret it in regards to wine trends in France in general.

[ericd]

Costco sells a few varieties, this is the one we buy: https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/kokuho-rose-us-%231-e...

It's sushi rice, grown in CA, and it's very good. Same stuff we used to buy from our local Japanese grocery store in CA.

[SpecialistK]

I can't remember how much I paid, but I was able to buy 10KG of grown-in-Japan short grain rice at Costco in Canada within the last year.

[Spivak]

Snobs will tell you yes, but Kokuho Rose is a California grown sushi rice that's good enough to be served over imported Japanese rice at Japanese restaurants. Really disappointing that the farm is closing up shop.

[eclipticplane]

Closing up shop?! I missed that news. Crushing. It's really the only rice I buy that's accessible but good quality. Sad.

[numpad0]

Speculating from online comments around it and from looking at bags of Calrose rice, they seem to be few decades behind in cultivation techniques and selective breeding improvements. The grains look smaller, less shiny and more yellowy. but technically they should be of the same strain.

[Izikiel43]

Japanese rice variety I think is called Japonica. I'm not sure if costco sells it.

[daedrdev]

Calrose, the primary rice grown in California is a Japonica, its just Japanese rice grown in America. Tamanishiki, which is one of the high grade sushi rices is grown in the US and Japan

It is O. s. subsp. japonica

[naniwaduni]

Costco sells a couple of Kokuho-brand Calrose varieties, which are decent drop-ins for for generic East Asian rice.

[theultdev]

haven't seen japonica often in the US, but jasmine rice is similar and available pretty much everywhere.

in fact, jasmine rice smells and tastes better, and stickier!