Bhutanese red rice is a medium-grain
rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...
grown in the
Kingdom of Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...
in the eastern
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...
. It is the staple rice of the Bhutanese people.
Bhutanese red rice is a red
japonica rice. It is semi-milled—some of the reddish
bran
Bran, also known as miller's bran, is the hard outer layers of cereal grain. It consists of the combined aleurone and pericarp. Corn (maize) bran also includes the pedicel (tip cap). Along with germ, it is an integral part of whole grains, ...
is left on the rice. Because of this, it cooks somewhat faster than an unmilled
brown rice
Brown rice is a whole grain rice with the inedible outer hull removed. This kind of rice sheds its outer hull or husk but the bran and germ layer remain on, constituting the brown or tan colour of rice. White rice is the same grain without the h ...
. When cooked, the rice is pale pink, soft and slightly sticky.
This rice became available in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
in the mid-1990s when
Lotus Foods
Lotus Foods is a Richmond, California, based company that focuses on importing handcrafted rice from small family farms to the United States. The company was founded in 1995 by Caryl Levine and Kenneth Lee. Their first and most popular product i ...
began importing it, and it is currently the only agricultural product imported from Bhutan.
See also
*
Red rice
Red rice is a variety of rice that is colored red by its anthocyanin content. It is usually eaten unpolished or partially polished, and has a red bran layer, rather than the more common pale brown. Red rice has a nutty flavor. It has the highe ...
References
*
Red rice
Red rice is a variety of rice that is colored red by its anthocyanin content. It is usually eaten unpolished or partially polished, and has a red bran layer, rather than the more common pale brown. Red rice has a nutty flavor. It has the highe ...
Japonica rice
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