According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, it's neither brown nor white rice, but a rice that's in between. Haiga is a new form of rice that up 10 years ago ago was available only in Japan. With haiga, the rice bran is meticulously removed, leaving the nutritious rice germ still attached to the kernel. It's being touted as a healthy alternative to white rice minus the tough bran fiber of brown rice. In other words, it's not a variety of rice, but rather the result of a particular milling process.