Rice Tasting Survey

Date: February 24, 2010
Location: Shin-D, approx. 12:00-1:30
Subject: Blind Taste Test

When I designed my project proposal for this course, I hoped to make an interactive exhibit, featuring this blog along with a live and blind rice tasting in which students can guess the types of rice that they consume. Specifically, I was hoping to serve Japonica rice from Japan and California, challenging the students in my class to see if they can tell the difference in taste (studies have proven, in similar testing environments, that there is no perceptible difference). So, following, I wanted to personally challenge the students about how aware they were of Japanese rice as a construct of identity - of how they did or didn't see in it some aspects of "Japaneseness."

I came across a challenge in the course of gathering my rice for the experiment. Getting a mid-range and high-end variety of rice was not difficult. Unfortunately, I couldn't really find a way to get ahold of Japonica rice from California. I went to several rice markets in my area and only found Japonica rice from Japan, brown rices, Japonica rice mixed with barley and other cereals, and long-grained rice from India and Thailand. I found a medium-grained length of American rice but it was not clear what variety it was (besides being a "Premium Rice Grain," whatever that means). Since I'd already purchased the other rices, however, I decided to go through with an abbreviated form of the survey anyway.

I made triangular "bite-sized rice-balls" (2-4 mouthfuls on average) for the experiment out of two different rices. I used the expensive Koshi-hikari type from Tohoku, and the mid-range Natsuboshi type from Hokkaido.

In the preliminary survey, I gave out two rice balls from bags labeled 1 and 2 and asked the test-taker to identify the sample by taste from among three different options: Koshi-hikari, Natsuboshi, and "mixed grains".

As I talked to the students who were surveyed, I got (unsurprisingly) a number of comments like "I don't know types of rice very well..." or "I'm not sure I can tell either way." However, they tended to agree that there was a quality difference, and in all but two cases were able to distinguish Koshi-hikari, pointing to its' "mochi-mochi" characteristic (or, "chewiness"). This was significantly different from their ability to identify the Natsuboshi variety. The high rate of confusing Natsuboshi with a mixed variety indicated little baseline for identifying separate, unique tastes, rather than just the ability to determine overall quality.

Here are the results:
I realized that Natsuboshi wasn't as famous as I had been mistaken in guessing (I had seen two other varieties of it on sale at the store where I bought the rice in Mitaka). I probably should have considered a brand like hitomebore. Also, I was very disappointed that I wasn't able to sample the Californian Japonica rice alongside the Japanese Japonica rice. I think that it would make for a more purposeful addition to this project. Even so I felt that it was interesting to ask my participants about how they saw rice, and we had some interesting discussion about that, my project, and broadly speaking, about the interesting things that happen to foreign foods when they come to Japan. It was neat being able to discuss culture and share ideas with new people!