I was excited to try out this rice when it came out on the Friday drop because of its name’s similarity of one of my favorite Shizuka Kudo songs, “Senryu no Shizuku.” This variety’s name, Ginga no Shizuku has the grandiose title of “drops of the Milky Way” and comes from Shohei Ohtani’s home prefecture of Iwate. What other superstar can they produce?
The rice comes in an attractive bag featuring nine different colored circles that are supposed to extol the virtues of the rice’s lineage such as the sun, sky, earth, etc, but what this mainly did was establish its name as “rainbow rice” in my household. Visually, the grains are almost all translucent and even in size, with few broken grains present.
After cooking, the aroma is unremarkable, but the grains stay distinct and have a beautiful luster to them - they shine! The texture is on the firmer side, with enough stickiness to stay clumped together in the mouth, but still giving the sensation of chewing through a larger morsel with a slow and distinct transition from the firm intial chunk into the chewed mass that will be swallowed. The flavor is also incredible, this is the sweetness that I have come to expect from premium rice. This rice is such a joy to eat that I find myself sneaking a bite or two as I walk past the rice cooker holding the warm leftovers from dinner, or bringing a small bowl of to work to snack on throughout the day (really just the morning as it is gone pretty quickly).
This is the first rice that I went back to buy a second bag of, and then a third during its two week stay at the Japanese market. Unsurprisingly, the Japanese Grain Inspection Association rated this rice as “Special-A” which is its highest rank. This is one of my favorite varieties of rice.
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