PURPOSE: To assure the exactness of the taste value of various kinds of rice at the time of comparing the quality of said rice by polishing the sample rice to a specified degree of polishing, then making measurement.

CONSTITUTION: The sample of the rice (objective rice) which is to be subjected to a measurement of taste and is polished to the prescribed degree of polishing is packed in a sample vessel and the vessel is loaded into a measuring section. The near IR rays after projected on the sample are detected by a photodetecting means and are converted to a quantity of electricity by a signal processing means. The absorbancy thereof is outputted to a control device. The component conversion coefft. values previously computed by the contents of magnesium and potassium in the known rice and the absorbancy thereof in the control device are set in a memory device. The component conversion coefft. values and absorbancy are computed by an arithmetic unit and the contents of the magnesium and potassium in the objective rice are calculated. The taste evaluation coefft. value computed by the contents of the magnesium and potassium of the known rice set in the memory device and the taste valuation value of the known rice evaluated by a function inspection and the contents of the magnesium and potassium in the objective rice are computed, by which the taste value is calculated.