Rice 2.0: Zojirushi NP-HBC10 Induction Rice Cooker Review - Best Brown Rice Ever

Recently I purchased a Zojirushi NP-HBC10 rice cooker. Yes, it’s a bit pricey. No, I didn’t pay retail - the price had dropped due to a sale and I got it at a pretty sweet price. I call it Rice 2.0.

Was it worth it? Yes.

This rice cooker is incredibly buzzword compliant. It has induction heating, fuzzy logic, stainless steel, heavy non-stick coating, GABA brown rice (makes your brown rice more stress relieving), time delay, multiple day extended heating, bluetooth, forced induction, TSA ready, UGC, social graph, cold fusion compatible. Ok, I might have made some of those up.

The reason I started shopping for a new rice cooker was because every time we made brown rice, there’d be a giant pool of rice water surrounding our rice cooker. I was always so sure that we were going to get electrocuted. Just to back up for a minute, we decided to go with brown rice for a while as it is healthier.

And what makes brown rice better than the NP-HBC10? Nothing. Check out this description of the GABA mode!

Q16. What is GABA brown rice?
A16. This is not a new variety of brown rice, but a newly discovered way of cooking brown rice to “activate” it and increase natural occurring gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an amino acid in brown rice believed to have health giving properties such as lowering blood pressure, improving kidney function and relieving stress. The brown rice is “activated” by soaking the rice at 104 degrees F for 2 hours before the actual cooking begins.

That’s right - I’m not going to be stressed anymore!

The reviews online are pretty amazing - apparently you can keep (white) rice for up to 4 days in this thing. Wow. It plays twinkle twinkle little star when it starts - and amaryllis when it stop! Does your rice cooker do that?

But seriously - this rice cooker has been a joy to clean so far. The non-stick coating is very non-stick, the other components are also very easy to wash. Every aspect of this device says “high quality” and “well designed” - it’s the Lexus of rice cookers.

I guess I should also talk about how the rice tastes. Both Jean and I agree that the brown rice was surprisingly… no… shockingly… no… stunningly good. Every grain was cooked perfectly - with a great taste, a great consistency, and a great texture. It’s as if each grain was cooked individually by a ninja, and then secretly placed back in the machine. Even rice that was then put in the fridge and reheated the next day in a microwave tasted good. Yes, it’s that good.

Bottomline: Zojirushi NP-HBC10 = totally worth it.