Yeah, as someone who started with Costco rice and slowly moved up the quality chain, there is a clear difference in taste between even average Japanese rice and most Costco rice. It would be interesting to see a price/quality comparison between the U.S. and Japanese Costcos though.

Costco sells a few varieties, this is the one we buy: https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/kokuho-rose-us-%231-e...

It's sushi rice, grown in CA, and it's very good. Same stuff we used to buy from our local Japanese grocery store in CA.

I can't remember how much I paid, but I was able to buy 10KG of grown-in-Japan short grain rice at Costco in Canada within the last year.

Speculating from online comments around it and from looking at bags of Calrose rice, they seem to be few decades behind in cultivation techniques and selective breeding improvements. The grains look smaller, less shiny and more yellowy. but technically they should be of the same strain.

Snobs will tell you yes, but Kokuho Rose is a California grown sushi rice that's good enough to be served over imported Japanese rice at Japanese restaurants. Really disappointing that the farm is closing up shop.

Japanese rice variety I think is called Japonica. I'm not sure if costco sells it.