Just one man's anecdote: I worked a short walk from a specialty Japanese food store when I lived in New York city. It was the kind of place that had fresh produ

Just one man's anecdote: I worked a short walk from a specialty Japanese food store when I lived in New York city. It was the kind of place that had fresh produce and fish/meat flown in from Japan a few days per week. They had a very large section of Japanese rice that had been produced in Japan (e.g. all of the packaging including ingredients etc. were in Japanese and the store manually overlaid printed labeled stickers in English). I pretty much exclusively ate rice I bought there for 2 or 3 years cooked in a mid-range Zojirushi rice cooker (as an aside - this is my favorite and most used kitchen appliance to this day and I would replace it in a heart beat if it ever stops working) The premium brands of Japanese rice that I would buy were slightly better than the current Kokuho Rose brand I get now (this is the best I can find in semi-rural Canada). The biggest difference in quality were brown rice variants (e.g. genmai) that I have been unable to find anywhere else. But the short-grain white rice weren't so much better that I really miss them. The quality is maybe 5% better but the cost to have it imported here is more than double, so very much not worth it.