The Japanese traditionally preferred rice, grilled fish and miso soup for breakfast, but trends are apparently changing.

A study by NRI Group revealed that 51% of Japanese people now prefer bread in the morning.

Enter the appropriately named TO-ST1-T toaster by Mitsubishi Electric, a premium toaster that ensures your bread tastes and feels like it came straight out of a baker's oven.

Although it is not yet available in local stores, you can buy one for S$399 at Amazon. 

Unfortunately, the toaster comes with one major drawback.

It can only toast one slice of bread at a time.

The toaster is inspired by rice cookers

Normally, toasted bread becomes crispy and even stiff, because the heat from the toaster dries up the bread. Some high-end toasters, such as the one from Balmuda, uses a small amount of water to keep bread from drying out.

Mitsubishi took a different approach, drawing on the company's experience in developing rice cookers.

The TO-ST1-T toaster traps and seals moisture by sealing a single slice of bread inside a metal box, and transferring heat through two plates at temperatures as high as 260 degrees Celsius. 

The result is toast that is crunchy on the outside, while moist on the inside.

However, this special toasting method is also why only one slice of bread can be toasted at a time.

The toaster can even make french toast

In fact, the toaster can do more than just toast bread.

Mitsubishi Electric claims that ingredients such as eggs and vegetables can be identified and baked along with the bread in a balanced manner.

You can also make french toast without having to turn the bread over.

Reviews

The toaster has a pretty good reception on Amazon, with mainly 4-star and 5-star reviews.

As I eat bread everyday for breakfast, I've been using a fryer. I've heard on TV many times that it's tastier than one made in a normal toaster oven as you don't have make cuts in the toast to get it properly toasted.

However, the way this toaster toasts gives my toast a flavour that I've never tasted before. The surface is crisp, while the centre is soft, similar to that of risen dough. This makes me look forward to eating bread everyday.

You don't have to worry about burning your toast even if you were to close and leave it on the table for a while. You can put frozen or cold bread into the toaster without the need for preheating.

The price of the item is around 30,000 yen, which is a bit pricey for a toaster, but it does have amazing properties.

I bought it at a household appliance shop, and I hurried to try out using it with frozen bread. It turned it crunchy but soft, which change my perception of the toaster's quality.

That was a really amazing piece of toast.Even though it's a toaster for a single piece of bread, it looks good and fashionable. You can even make french toast.

My general take on it is that it's time for the era of enjoying single-toasts to arrive in homes. It was expensive but worth it!

Top image from Mitsubishi Electric.