Abstract:In order to study the difference of cooking taste quality of different varieties of indica brown rice in South China, the appearance quality, physicochemical properties, cooking properties, pasting properties, thermodynamic properties and texture properties of 14 main indica rice varieties in South China were analyzed in this paper. Then, the entropy method and cluster analysis were used for comprehensive evaluation and classification. The results showed that brown rice skin thickness significantly affected the water absorption of brown rice (correlation coefficient -0.605), amylose content significantly affected the expansion rate of brown rice (correlation coefficient -0.434), protein content significantly affected the disintegration value of brown rice (correlation coefficient -0.573), fat content and rice soup dry matter (correlation coefficient 0.600). Soluble and insoluble dietary fiber significantly affected the enthalpy of gelatinization of brown rice (correlation coefficients were 0.501 and 0.425, respectively). Through entropy analysis, the varieties with the highest comprehensive scores were Meixiangzhan 2 and 19xiang, and the comprehensive scores were 0.105 and 0.105, respectively. Moreover, 16 core indexes that could represent the taste quality of brown rice were selected. The 14 varieties were divided into 3 categories by cluster analysis, including 2, 9 and 3 varieties respectively. In conclusion,this study evaluated the differences of 14 indica brown rice varieties in South China, and selected two varieties suitable for consumption as staple food. This study provided a theoretical basis for screening indica brown rice suitable for consumption as staple food.