Zojirushi Rice Cookers

Zojirushi is a Japanese company that produces home appliances. The name "Zojirushi" actually means "Elephant symbol" or "Elephant mark", and Zojirushi's emblem is indeed an image of an elephant. Zojirushi is famous throughout Japan but also throughout the world. And since rice is a way of life in Japan, and literally every home has a rice cooker, you can trust that Zojirushi rice cookers will provide you with high quality and athenticity that only a Japanese company can provide you with. Their rice cookers are typically between $100 and $200, so you won't find many cheap $50 Zojirushis, but in exchange for that money you get pure value.

Zojirushi produces a stunningly wide selection of rice cookers and we can't look at all of them here, but one popular unit is the NS-TGC10 Micom 5 1/2 cup rice cooker and warmer. I live in Japan and I see this rice cooker is a lot of friends' homes and in some cafes too. This one is quite affordable at a list price of $183, but can be find from online retailers for as low as $125. It has a capacity of 5.5 cups of rice, which is a standard size for home units in Japan. It features fuzzy logic technology to adjust the temperature and cooking time to your rice as it cooks, resulting in high quality rice every time. It has a variety of pre-programmed settings for white rice, sushi rice, sweet rice, brown rice, quick cooking, porridge, cake, and more. It has good digital programming and timing abilities, and it has automatic keep-warm functions. This is a pretty standard high quality Zojirushi.

Another example is the Zojirushi NS-ZCC10 5 1/2 cup Neuro Fuzzy Premium rice cooker. It features most of the above features of the NS-TGC10 Micom, but it makes use of more advanced Neuro Fuzzy logic technology. The maker claims that this product makes "perfect rice every time", and consumer reports confirm the truth in this.

The only caution I have to tell you about Zojirushi rice cookers is that they use Japanese measurements, so 5.5 cups is more like 4 cups in the United States. To avoid mismeasurement, use the cups included with the rice cooker to count your cups of rice. Otherwise you may add too much water for the amount of rice you put in.