R. Greene—January 19, 2024
Let me first say why I chose this one over the baby Elephant brand that plays musical tunes when you use it. I actually ordered one of those first, the latest (black square one). And I was not impressed with the soft coating on the cooking pot. I gouged it with my fingernail just taking it out of the box. There is no way I was going to trust that to last over time. So I started looking for cookers with a ceramic hard coated cooking pot and ran across this one. I like the size of the cooker, the big orange display, it has plenty of cooking modes. I was most interested in Gabba brown and Quinoa which it does not have a setting for. I heard plain white should work just fine. I like that you can slow cook with it, and the Cake function, I may try out of curiosity to see how it works. When you start the cooking timer the fan starts immediately. It’s not noisy but it does not seem to be sensor controlled. (Update, depending on the program the fan will speed up and slow down. So it is sensor controlled). Everything is easy to clean and take apart. My first batch of rice was 2 cups of Jasmine. I used the long grain setting and it was done in about 25 minutes. Much quicker than I expected, and it turned out great. Better than any stove top rice I have ever made. Nothing stuck together and it broke apart easily when stirred. I used to have a cheap Aroma cooker that would always burn the bottom of the rice. To say that this is an upgrade is a major understatement. A few things to note, the top lid plate is Teflon coated, which I wish it was stainless. However there is another model in the same family that has a non coated lid. I ordered one for the model JKT-B10U hoping that they are interchangeable. Once that comes in I will update my review with my findings. Also this model does not come with a steam tray, which I find odd. I think it should have come with one. Overall I am very satisfied with my purchase and look forward to trying all of its features for many years to come. And the timer function is awesome. Update: The JKT-B10U top plate is 100% comparable. I still wish there was a stainless steel option. But you can at least “pick your poison”. Teflon or untreated aluminum. Read more
B. Elmore—October 19, 2024
As my title says, I've owned 3 different Zojirushi rice cookers and this one is my favorite so far. In fairness, this is the highest end one that I've purchased and the first one that was an induction cooker. My last Zojirushi (YAC10) was somewhat of a disappointment. Somehow the Quick Rice setting stopped working properly after a year or so. The coating on the pot also started failing in that time -- first, it started "bubbling" and then flaking off in my food. A replacement pot is $62. I opted to buy this Tiger cooker instead. The controls are straight forward and practically identical to the Zojirushis. So far, I've only used it to make long grain white rice and the results are outstanding. Although its rice isn't a "night and day" improvement over my previous Zojirushi Micom/Fuzzy Logic cookers, it is definitely an incremental improvement. The rice is fluffy and perfectly cooked -- truly restaurant quality. It doesn't have an "extended keep warm" setting, which concerned me at first, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Rice can be kept in the cooker for multiple days, albeit it's best when it's freshly cooked. One reason that I chose the Tiger over the Zojirushi was because of its pot. It's still has a non-stick coating, but instead of an aluminum pot, it has a ceramic one and its coating seems more robust. The other reason is the price. The Tiger was cheaper than similar offerings from Zojirushi. Based on my experience, I can't see any reason why I'd opt for the latter. In fact, even if they were the same price, I'd lean towards the Tiger after the experience with Zojirushi's poor quality non-stick coating. Read more
T meister H—February 10, 2021
I bought this to replace my 10 year old Sanyo Micom which has done wonders feeding my family of 4. The Sanyo has been recently choking up starchy water all over the place, which led me to look for options. We later on realized it was due to a "bad" rice batch but too late, our minds were already set on replacing the Sanyo. We tried Cuckoo CRP-P0609S at first for its pressure cooking feature using the same "bad" batch for experimentation. To our surprise, the rice was drenched and subpar, not to mention the starchy water issues on both of our trials. When we switched to a new rice bag, the starchy water went away but the rice flavor was far from our Sanyo. This was unacceptable since the cooker was x2.8 more in cost! I was then hoping to get a Zojirushi IH rice cooker to try but they had backorder issues and I saw the rice cooker I was eyeing on released in 2015 vs this Tiger's 2020. We also tried one of Zojirushi's initial IH models +10 years ago which didn't suit us that well. I am glad we didn't wait for Zojirushi as this Tiger gets a 10/10 for rice flavor, features, and price (slightly cheaper than Zoji esp with the 10% coupon). We used the same problematic batch for comparison purposes and out of our three trials, no starchy water issues to date and the rice comes out perfect each time. This one is a keeper and I hope it lasts as long as our beloved Sanyo. Read more
