Yum Asia Bamboo Rice Cooker with Induction Heating

Before I get on with the Bamboo Rice Cooker review, a little background. I’d owned a cheap Tefal Cool Touch rice cooker for many, many years. It had served me well. It didn’t do anything fancy, it just cooked rice to an ok standard.

After probably 15-20 years it showed signs of rusting underneath the bowl support. Then the rocker power switch started to trip early, leaving uncooked rice. As a result, I decided to treat myself to a new rice cooker.

I researched what the best method was to cook rice, and quickly realised that induction heating provided the best tasting results, according to the experts.

I’d looked at the Zojirushi range, but they were extremely expensive and out of my budget. But then I found that Yum Asia also had some models using Induction Heating, including the Bamboo range.

The packaging used by Yum Asia was good at restricting movement of the rice cooker in transit, as well as protecting the surfaces from scratches. As a result, the product was in pristine condition when I removed it from the box, ready for use.

However, it should be noted that the protection used was polystyrene and non-recyclable coverings. In current times I would expect paper/cardboard-based supportive packaging to be used, allowing for recycling after use.

To me, the Bamboo Rice Cooker by Yum Asia looks great. I selected the Champagne Rose colour as I thought it looked really smart. But equally the silver and black versions look good too.

The control panel looks clear, with lots of information relayed through the white-lettered LED display. It’s easy to press the buttons, they respond well. It could well be a weakness in the future perhaps, but I’ve not seen any complaints of longevity for these.

The front panel comes covered with a protective layer, which can be peeled off before use.

Stored underneath the rice cooker in the box is a plastic bag containing a good quality spatula and soup ladle. Both appear to be quite strong and likely to last some time.

Opening up the rice cooker lid revealed a steamer basket, which appears to also be quite sturdy. Inside it was stored the power cable, wrapped in a protective plastic bag.

Lifting up the steamer basket there’s the ceramic bowl underneath. There were clear measurement markings visible on the inside of the bowl. Plus within the bowl was the plastic measurement cup with a little handle, used to measure out cups of rice for cooking.

On top of the lid is a detachable vent, which allows excess steam to escape, preventing over soaking of the rice.

Underneath the lid, there is a detachable inner lid, which is dimpled to collect condensation. It is made of stainless steel, with a flexible rubber-like material around the outside. The white rectangle at the top of the photo is a latch to remove the lid for cleaning after use.

The ceramic Joubu bowl has a 3mm thick coating. It has clear printing on it to show combined rice and water level lines, depending on type of rice and cups of rice used.

The bowl sits snugly within the body of the rice cooker, with the carry handles fitting into a gap on each side. The handles are riveted for extra strength, and made of moulded thermolymer plastic to stay cool.

The measurement markings on the inside of the bowl are very clear and easy to see. There are markings to show the water level needed for various rice and grains including short grain, long grain and brown rice.

In the test example photos I am cooking 5 cups of a combination of white rice and berry rice (hence the purple look of some grains).

When the rice was in and I had added sufficient water, I closed the lid, which shuts with a reassuring click.

With the power switched on, the menu comes to life with white lettering over a black background.

Press the Menu button to cycle through the menu options. I needed to press it once to advance to the White Rice setting, and then pressed the Start button to proceed with the cooking cycle.

The display then shows a series of lines in a circular pattern, which cycle in a clockwise direction to show that cooking is underway.

Bamboo’s advanced AI technology means that the rice is cooked evenly and fast. They have several magnetic inductive coils within the bottom of the rice cooker, which create a magnetic field. When the rice cooker is activated on a cooking cycle, the Joule ceramic coated bowl is subject to a magnetic field that creates instant heat. 

This means that the inner cooking bowl becomes the heat source, rather than a separate heating element. This allows the Bamboo Rice Cooker to utilise both high heat and fine heat adjustments to very accurately control the cooking process.

It also creates swirling heating currents that agitate the rice grains in the pot. This process produces an even rice cooking process, so grains are delicately cooked.

Depending on the type of rice being cooked, the time can vary significantly. For example, white rice is about 30 minutes, but brown rice will be approximately 60 minutes.

This is because of the inductive heating being able to carefully control temperature, allowing for multi-phased efficient cooking of different rice types.

These phases include:

• Rising boil
• Steam
• Braise
• Boil
• Water absorption
• Accelerate heat
• Sugar release
• Nutrient reabsorption
• Cool down
• and more

As the cooking reaches 10 minutes to go the display starts to show the remaining time. When it reaches time the rice cooker plays a little jingle to announce it has cooked.

Following on, it enters a period of warming to keep the rice ready for when you need it. The display shows a timer of how many minutes it has been on the warming phase.

Once the rice has finished cooking you can click the button at the front of the lid. It pings up, and lots of moisture will run off the silver internal lid.

It flows down into some drain holes at the bottom of the lid, which empty out into a removable receptacle at the back of the rice cooker.

The rice cooker comes with a very sturdy rice spoon, which has a balancing point on the back to stop the spoon head from resting on a surface.

In addition it comes with a soup ladle, made of the same material as the rice spoon.