Emergency stockpiles are jazzed up as “vintage”, but are they more of a miss than a hit? 

There’s a severe shortage of rice in Japan at the moment, and the situation is so dire that the government recently released emergency stockpiles to make the everyday staple more widely available. As these are emergency stockpiles, though, the rice isn’t freshly harvested — in fact, some would go so far as to call it old, with stocks dating back several years. Still, old rice may be better than no rice at all, and many of the country’s convenience stores are now selling it through their branches, both as bags of grain, and, in the case of Lawson, onigiri rice balls.

Two varieties, Salt Onigiri and Dashi Onigiri, have just been released, and both of them are made with emergency stockpiled rice from Japan’s 2021 harvest.

▼ Given the dated nature of the rice used, these onigiri are priced at 108 yen (US$0.73) each, which is cheaper than other onigiri at the chain.

It’s rare for people in Japan to eat four-year-old rice, let alone buy it in a store, particularly in rice ball form, so we just had to find out what these tasted like.

Starting with the Salt Onigiri, we took a bite and discovered it had a surprising sourness to it.

This had nothing to do with the age of the grains, though, as the list of ingredients revealed that in addition to salt, seasoned rice vinegar had also been used.

▼ Seasoned rice vinegar (調味酢) is the second ingredient on the list, after non-glutinous rice (うるち米) and before salt (食塩).

The balance seemed a little off as the vinegar overpowered the salt, and in terms of texture, the rice felt somewhat dry compared to a typical convenience store onigiri. It wasn’t inedible, but if we’re being honest, it didn’t have the same moist and plump mouthfeel as a regular salt onigiri, and it seemed as if the vinegar had been added in an attempt to add moisture and soften the grains.

Slightly disappointed by the dryness of the rice, we moved on to try the next rice ball, Dashi Onigiri.

Taking a bite, this one revealed a pronounced flavour of dashi stock, making it much more delicious than the Salt Onigiri. Although this one also contains seasoned vinegar, the acidity is barely noticeable as the dashi reigns supreme, making it our preferred choice.

While the dashi provides bagfuls of flavour, there’s still no hiding the texture of the rice, which leaves a lot to be desired.

Having previously tried stockpiled rice out of desperation recently, we were actually surprised by how dry these rice balls were. The stockpiled rice we’d purchased, and cooked up in a rice cooker at home, didn’t seem all that different to regular rice, but these onigiri were much dryer than expected, making them less enjoyable than non-old-rice onigiri.

According to Lawson, the chain plans to sell approximately 7 million of these by the end of August, by which time they’ll no longer be available. According to us, they’ll do in a pinch, especially if you’re on a tight budget, but if flavour and texture are higher on your list of priorities, you might want to give these particular convenience store finds a miss.

After all, there are plenty of other new releases to spend your money on, like sparkling sake in a can and Lawson’s new fried chicken, which gives other convenience store chains a run for their money.

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