Taste and Terroir: Taiwan’s Rice Gains Refinement

Taiwan’s biggest “rice basket” is the alluvial plain of the Zhuoshui River in Changhua and Yunlin. That’s the home turf of Rice House Universal Co. in Changhua’s Erlin. The firm’s managing director Chen Chao-hao established the Big Bridge Rice Production Area, which includes more than 500 farmers and 1000 hectares under contract. It has plans to grow six specialty varieties of rice: Koshihikari, Taikeng No. 9, Taichung No. 194, Tainan No. 16, Kaohsiung No. 147 and Tainan No. 11.

Rice House Universal serves as a bridge between farmers and consumers, helping the former to grow good rice and ensuring that the latter can eat good rice. The photo shows Rice House Universal’s managing director, Chen Chao-hao.

To plant and to eat good rice

A pioneer in building name recognition for individual rice varieties, Rice House Universal has also been a leader in putting name-brand rice into small packages. In 2006 Chen established its niche brand “Rice House,” which dispenses with typical sales channels. The brand takes a “top-drawer” approach, selling only to department stores.

The Rice House variety that sells best and has the highest name recognition is Koshihikari. It’s a strain originally from Japan that Chen Chao-hao’s father Chen Chun-hsiung introduced into Taiwan. From initially just three hectares, the land planted with it has increased to more than 800 hectares. Taichung No. 194 and Tainan No. 16, on the other hand, are new varieties developed by the Taichung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station. Rice House acquired the rights to grow them only in the last two years.

Chen Chao-hao points out that the specialty rice varieties each have their own strong points. For instance, Koshihikari rice is sweet with grains that are full and plump, and it has a chewy mouthfeel. It is well suited for sushi. Taikeng No. 9 offers the right amount of stickiness and pliancy and is quite sweet, suitable for eating with meat and vegetables and for stir-frying. Taichung No. 194 emits a sweet fragrance and has a tender mouthfeel. It’s best for congees and rice-ball snacks. Kaohsiung No. 147 has a sweet scent reminiscent of taro and is perfect for rice in gravies.

“‘Plant good rice; eat good rice’: That motto epitomizes Rice House Universal’s core values.” Chen notes that production levels and profits are the chief factors motivating farmers’ participation. Consumers’ willingness to eat rice, on the other hand, is determined by whether its quality is high or low. Rice House Universal serves as a bridge between farmers and the consumer market: “We help farmers to grow good rice and ensure that consumers can eat good rice.”

What kind of mouthfeel is ideal for rice? That may be a case where you know it when you feel it, but market acceptance provides one way to judge.

Chen notes that most people prefer to eat rice with a low amylose content (10–20%)—in other words “rice that is sticky but not too sticky.”

The Taiwanese word “Q,” which is often used to praise good mouthfeel in rice and noodles and is typically translated as “chewy,” has been given this interesting definition: “When biting, some resistance is offered. When the teeth part, some stickiness ensues.” Sheu Chih-sheng regards the definition as the ideal to which rice breeders are striving. 

Sheu bred Taikeng No. 9 in 1993, and it remains one of the most popular rice varieties marketed in Taiwan. After 11 years of hard work, he then released another variety of his own breeding: Taichung No. 194.

“Taichung 194 was crossbred,” says Sheu. “Taikeng No. 9 was the father and basmati the mother.” In terms of its pedigree, 75% of its genes come from Taikeng No. 9.

Rice House Universal worked with National Taiwan University to create a new variety—Lu Ming Rice (Tainan No. 16)—in 2012. It was the first time that molecular-marker-assisted selection techniques were used for breeding a new variety of rice in Taiwan. Hwu Kae-kang, an assistant professor of agronomy at NTU, notes that Lu Ming was crossbred from Koshihikari and Tainung No. 67 and that marker-assisted selection reduced the time needed for developing the variety to only six years.

Keeping things natural: Yin-Chuan Organic

Fuli in Hualien’s rift valley is a center of organic rice production in Eastern Taiwan, where rice is harvested from late June until the middle of July.

“This year there were an unusually large number of cold spells, and the harvest was about a week later than usual,” says Lai Chao-hsuan, CEO of Yin-Chuan Organic Farms.

Yin-Chuan has contracted 130 farmers to plant about 300 hectares with organic rice. It produces about 3000 metric tons per year. It is Taiwan’s largest organic farming entity, and its “Yin-Chuan Rice” has the best name recognition among all of Taiwan’s organic rice brands. 

Yin-Chuan Rice is mostly Kaohsiung No. 139. “We plant what’s suited to the particular piece of land,” says Lai. Yin-Chuan once experimented with planting some new varieties, but there were too many mutations after three years, so they came to feel it was easier just to deal with largely one strain. Kaohsiung No. 139 is an old variety with nearly 40 years of planting history. Its strengths include high yields and a good mouthfeel.

The fact that its rice is organic is Yin-Chuan’s biggest selling point. “Rice is happiest when you do nothing” is the company’s motto. “Keeping things natural is so important!” says Lai, who explains that the central tenet of their philosophy is not to fight the earth. “The yields from organic agriculture are 20–30% lower than traditional agriculture, but organic farming is friendly to the earth, and one achieves relatively higher yields with it by not trying to do too much.” 

Harvesting smaller yields of rice actually is beneficial to the ecosystem. Lai notes that in the morning organic fields will be festooned with spider webs, and occasionally common moorhens and white-bellied crakes will establish nests in the fields. Recently, Kikuchi’s minnows (Aphyocypris kikuchii) have even been seen in the flooded paddy fields that Yin-Chuan has leased in Namuan, an Aboriginal village in Hualien’s Yuli Township.

A former farmer himself, Lai deeply understands the hardships of farming life: “You’re always transplanting rice seedlings when it’s coldest and harvesting when it’s hottest.” What with all the weeding and applications of manure, organic farming is particularly onerous. And the labor shortages in farming are severe. Lai points out that when Yin-Chuan holds activities to honor its senior farmers, the number of farmers over 70 can fill up an entire coach. 

However difficult his job, Lai is still working hard to bolster Taiwan’s top brand of organic rice. He explains that planting rice is no longer just about producing food for consumption. It’s also an important mechanism for conserving the land: “A hectare of wet rice fields has a cooling power equivalent to 20–30 air conditioners.”

Fields planted with organic crops brim with birdsong and insect calls. Common moorhens also come to build their nests. (courtesy of Lai Chao-hsuan)

Green in Hand: Marketing a rice culture

In Taipei, far from where the rice is planted, one finds the retailer “Green in Hand,” which has pushed rice onto the international stage and into the realms of cultural creativity. Over the last two years it has won both a German Red Dot design award and a Design for Asia Award. These have attracted attention from various quarters.

Gabi Cheng, the founder of Green in Hand, explains that the company from the get-go regarded rice as being part of the “souvenir” market and saw itself as carving out an international channel for Taiwan.

“Rice is a gift that represents Taiwan,” says Cheng, who emphasizes that every mouthful is a unique expression of the soil and climate of Taiwan. For travelers to Taiwan, the taste is well worth bringing home with them.

The simple design of Green in Hand products inspires people to fondle them admiringly. The rices in small floral-patterned cloth bags are particularly popular. Because the packaging is so exquisite, many people are hesitant to actually open the bags and use the rice.

Cheng says that when customers reluctantly open up a bag after a year, they find that the rice is full of weevils. With heavy hearts, they call asking what to do. In such cases, Cheng tells customers to compost the weevil-infested rice, and then she sends them a new package. “We give it away in the hope our friends will able to eat good fresh rice!”

Cheng is a second-generation “mainlander” (those who came to Taiwan from the Chinese mainland when the Nationalist government decamped to Taiwan in 1949), and she remembers when the family acquired rice with ration coupons. She says that none of the rice she ate when young was particularly tasty. When she was 30, she had her first taste of good rice when her mother-in-law sent up a 30-kilo package of rice from Taitung as a wedding gift.

Back them it wasn’t common to give rice as a gift. Its weight invoked the displeasure of the mail carrier, and even Cheng’s father had doubts about its appropriateness: “Is this a present or disaster relief?”

In 2006 Cheng and her husband wanted to start a business selling local Taiwan products. Immediately, she thought of the varieties of rice that one can’t usually find on grocery store shelves. Living in a city far from where the rice was produced, Cheng took a maverick urban approach to marketing the rice—with regard to both the design of the packaging and the text on it. Immediately the products attracted attention, finding interested buyers in the tourist, wedding and corporate gift markets.

“A full ceramic vat of rice is the best wedding present.” Chen says that giving rice as a wedding present is invested with deep meaning. Companies can show a “maverick” corporate character by giving rice. Laughing, she notes that in 2008 after the global financial tsunami, a local financial institution ordered shipments of New Year’s rice to give to its staff, so that the employees that received this heavy gift were each “able to eat a pound” (a pun on a phrase that means “were astounded”).

In 2014 Green in Hand opened its first brick-and-mortar shop at Taipei’s Songshan Cultural and Creative Park. Last year it won the business of some major clients and expanded production. It has opened another shop on Taipei’s Ren’ai Road and has counters in two of Eslite’s stores in Hong Kong. It is hoping to significantly expand its operations.

Cheng explains that it is the firm’s professional responsibility to develop sales channels for rice that everyone loves to eat. “We have always put a top priority on delivering profit to the farmers,” she says. For their largest order, they contracted with seven rice farmers with whom they have an excellent relationship, and with them they have developed famous brands, such as “Mr. Rice” and “Respecting Farmers Rice.”

“But some strains of rice are disappearing,” Cheng says with regret. For example, the award-winning rice grown in Luye, Taitung by “Papa Hsu” has ceased to be available with the old farmer’s passing.

“Let’s applaud and encourage the things that Taiwan and its people have long excelled at!” That’s Green Hand’s business slogan. Although no one can stop the beautiful products and people of Taiwan from constantly disappearing, it is also true that they are continually being reborn. Isn’t that also the story of Taiwan rice?       

Yin-Chuan markets Taiwan’s leading brand of organic rice. Its CEO Lai Chao-hsuan says that no value is more important to the firm than being good to the land.

Each mouthful of Taiwan-grown rice offers a taste of the land. It is well worth savoring. (courtesy of Green in Hand)

Each mouthful of Taiwan-grown rice offers a taste of the land. It is well worth savoring. (courtesy of Green in Hand)

A gift of a full vat of rice is how Green in Hand conveys its best wishes to its clients and farmer suppliers.