Our most grown and most sold rice variety is Hom Mali, followed by Red Hom Mali and Black Hom Nin.
Accordingly we do present these three varieties here.
Thai "Hom Mali" Rice is the world's only traditional strain of rice with a natural fragrance similar to the pandanus plant. Though several other countries have tried to grow this variety, none has been successful in preserving its distinct aroma, texture and taste.
Thai Hom Mali Rice - "Hom" for its gentle, unique aroma and "Mali" for its jasmine white appearance - is the official name of Thailand's finest fragrant rice. Hom Mali is photo-sensitive.This means that the growning cycle needs certain day/night cycle length during its growning cycle which results in a quite narrow range of geographical latitude for best growing conditions. Thai Hom Mali Rice is best grown in Thailand's Northeastern Region (ESAN).
Combined with low intesity, organic agriculture we produce the finest and most delicious quality Thai Hom Mali Rice: long grain, silky smooth, pure white, a tender texture when cooked and of distinct fragrance.
Thai "Hom Mali" Rice is the world's only traditional strain of rice with a natural fragrance similar to the pandanus plant. Though several other countries have tried to grow this variety, none has been successful in preserving its distinct aroma, texture and taste.
Currently there are two Hom Mali sub-varieties - Khao Dok Mali 105 and Gor Kor 15. These sub-varieties of Thai Hom Mali Rice originated from a small village called Bang Klar in Bang Nampliew District, Chachoengsao Province in central Thailand. While both sub-varieties produce similar quality of cooked fragrant rice, the Gor Kor 15 has a slightly shorter growing cycle.
Most of our farmers grow both varieties to lessen the burden during harvest time as they can stretch the total harvest season accordingly. This also results in better drying and storage as the load on the drying areas is less.
If the yearly heavy spring and summer rain arrives in time farmers start planting seedlings from late June to July and replant in July and August. The end of a rainy season is around the end of October till the beginning of November. Farmers will begin harvesting in late November, when there is low humidity since there is cool wind from China.
The dry season is appropriate for harvesting, drying, and threshing. Average rainfall in November and December is almost zero.
As a result, good quality rice crops will yield.
Thai Hom Mali Rice has an international reputation for its appearance and cooking texture but most of all for its aroma, which is subtle yet fragrant. It is also the grain's versatility as a cooking staple that has made it such a mouth-watering prospect for consumers around the world.
Let me give you two short illustrations of the quality:
A pilot of Air India told us about his experience with Hom Mali:
"After I started to fly the route to Thailand regularly I usually ate Hom Mali during my stopovers in Thailand and I started to really like it. Until then I had always considered Basmati the "Best of the Best". When I took a 5kg bag of Hom Mali back home, my wife was very sceptical of cooking an non-indian rice. "This can't be anything good!" was her intial comment.
Already after the first meal she was impressed and today I have to bring Hom Mali almost each trip because my kids, my wife and also a lot of my extended family only want to eat Hom Mali."
The experience of me (Bruno) is the same with my family. We eat rice three or four times a week and we mostly had eaten Italian Medium Grain or Indian Basmati. From the first time I served them Hom Mali back home some years ago my kids are very disappointed if we cook another variety than Hom Mali, so much do they prefer the Hom Mali taste and texture.
In many instances people do not like to eat Brown Rice because fo the earthy taste and relatively coarse texture. Many healt contientious mothers just do not succeed in convincing their family to accept Brown Rice as the norm.
With Hom Mali mothers will have much less problem to convince their kids to eat Brown Rice. Hom Cargo Rice has such a very pleasant buttery, melting texture and aromatic taste. The Bran of Hom Mali seems to be thinner and a lot softer than from any other rice variety. Compare Cooked Brown Hom Mali with any other Cooked Brown Rice and you will agree with me instantly.
Red cargo rice is normally called for the milled rice of ‘Hom Daeng’ (‘Daeng’ means red) rice variety in Thailand. Hom Daeng is the rice variety which is a natural mutant from Hom Mali and has been developed by Thai Rice Research Department since 1982. Mr.Boonhome who was the head of a rice research facility found the pink mutated seed in the Hom Mali purity check process. He continued the research for the pink variety of rice and finally announced the ‘Hom Daeng’ variety in the year of 1999
To maintain the purity of Hom Mali rice, ‘Hom Daeng’ is totally restricted to plant in the same field with (even near to) Hom Mali rice. That’s the reason why the amount of red cargo rice supplier is very limited.
The Hom Daeng rice has the dark pink color in its pericarp. So it’s sold as the cargo rice to preserve its red color. Beside the aromatic scent, the red cargo rice also has the plentifully higher amount of vitamin B-6 and dietary fiber than Hom Mali. It’s also has the high amount of polyphenol antioxidant Like other cargo rice, it can be nicely mix with Hom Mali or white rice or other variety.When cooked, it retains a deep burgundy color. The outer bran splits open to reveal a bit of the inner white kernel.
While Hom Daeng is a direct offspring of Hom Mali and is aromatic it can not be called so in the Thai Export Process. This is a decision of the Thai Government in their legal definition of Hom Mali.
Even it’s called ‘Hom Mali’ but actually the real variety not really Hom Mali. And in fact it’s cannot be declared as ‘Black Hom Mali’ when export and will be declared as ‘Black cargo rice’ instead as the term Hom Mali is by strictiy limited to Khao Dok Mali 105 and Gor Kor 15.
Black cargo rice is technically called for any variety of rice those has the black (or close to, dark purple for example) color for its grain. The black cargo is commonly milled from ‘Hom Nil Rice’. (‘Hom’ means good scent, ‘Nil’ means dark-black color)
The origin of Hom Nil Rice is unknown and a number of theories exist. It has a distinctive grainy scent ( different from Hom Mali ), and the scent will be stronger when it’s cooked. The purple colour is not limited to the pericap/bran but even the outer part of the grain has the purple color!)
Normally Hom Nil will be milled only one time to keep most of its nutrient and color.The color of its cargo grain after carefull first milling is dark purple. Hom Nil is one of the highest-nutrient rice in the market and is highly demanded among health concerned consumers. It has 10-12.5% of protein compare to 6% of Hom Mali rice, 4.2 mg/100g of calcium, 2.25-3.25 mg/100g of iron, 2.9mg of zinc and a lot of antioxidants (292 microgram/g). The scent comes from the 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline and the dark-purple color comes from anthocyanin, proanthocyanidin, bioflavonoids substances and vitamin E.
Black cargo rice is not a staple variety and mostly is grown on request. Our limited supply usually is sold out quickly and our farmers are very succesfull in selling the black rice harvest in 1kg packs directly to the local consumers. Accordingly there is high competition. If you are looking for a steady, safe supply we can custom grow for you at favourable conditions..
As there is no official export standard for the black cargo rice is in the exported as sampled.
We regularly supply a representative sample directy after milling to our overseas customer or if considered sufficient a high resolution picture of a minimum of 500 kernels visible, even before sending the load to our Bangkok warehouse for CO2 treatment so that you can o.k. the goods early enough
We are one of the few suppliers that are able to do a thorough high quality colour sorting also for Black rice.