Rough Rice

Adam James is the owner, operator and creative genius of Rough Rice – you’ll find Adam, along with his amazing jarred ferments, congee and things on sticks in the Grub Hub, Farmgate Market most Sundays.

Whilst running Tricycle Café in Hobart, Adam became legitimately fascinated by the alchemy of fermentation. How with a little salt and time you can literally transform an ingredient into something completely amazing. He was mainly dabbling in quite simple lacto-ferments; pickles, hot sauces, sauerkrauts and kimchis, yet as a cook, the flavour profiles created were so so delicious.

From there hobby became obsession and Rough Rice was born in 2014.

I started investing any spare money I had into large ceramic crocks and set up my own fermentary. I would read anything I could get my hands on and all of my spare time was put into research and experimentation. I also travelled as much as I could (mainly around Asia – including an annual pilgrimage to Japan) to expand my knowledge. I started delving more into the world of cultured ferments making koji, misos, doubanjiang, gochujang and so forth.

In 2017 I was fortunate to land a Churchill Fellowship and went on a ‘fermentation world tour’ that took me to Denmark, Italy, France, Georgia, China, Korea and Japan to study age old (and new) fermentation techniques. Whilst I was away, the café sold and now fermentation (and making fermented condiments) is my primary focus. I’m now getting more experimental, playing with traditional techniques and methodology and adapting them to local ingredients.

Like a good wine every vintage is unique, and no two condiments will ever be the same – a real pain in the arse for marketing purposes though.