Rice is consumed mainly as whole grain, and quali-
ty considerations are much more important than for
any other food crop. Rice grain quality preference
varies from country to country and among regions.
Nowadays, aromatic rice varieties are playing a vital
role in global rice trading, and also in Portugal. The
economic value of rice depends on its cooking and
processing quality, such us water uptake ratio, cooking
time and texture properties.
Three types of aromatic rice were collected and ana-
lyzed for biometry characteristics, cooking time, wa-
ter absorption, and texture properties. The rice grains
were collected from the Portuguese trade market.
Biometric characteristics of all rice grains were eval-
uated by S21 (LKL) and C-300 (Kett) colorimeter. The
rice flour gels texture was performed by a TPA (texture
profile analysis), giving information about adhesive-
ness, chewiness, gumminess, hardness, resilience and
cohesiveness. The extrusion force was also determined
according to ISO 11747:2012.
Rice samples are commercially classified as long grains
B type, because they presented a length higher than
6 mm and the ratio length/ width higher than 3. The
samples presented a high degree of whiteness, with a
strictly relationship between the total and vitrea white-
ness (r 2 = 0.95). The cooking time varied from 12 to 17
minutes and these properties was strongly related with
water uptake (from 155.7 - 209.1 g). Generally, aromat-
ic rice cultivars presented different textural properties.
Aromatic rice samples are different for hardness, adhe-
siveness, gumminess, resilience, and extrusion force.
From the results obtained it was concluded that the
studied aromatic rice cultivars presented different
physical properties, mainly the cooking time, water
uptake and texture. These differences could be a com-
mercial advantage considering the consumer point
of view, because the enterprise could provide specif-
ic aromatic rice in order to attend different consumer
targets