Sara's Tea Caddie

Here’s Hoping Traveling Teabox Round #3 – Tea #22
I always wondered what a hojicha/genmaicha would be like! Really, it doesn’t taste all that different. I thought it would be toastier with the popped rice but the hojicha already seems to have that toasty quality. It just tasted like a normal hojicha to me. I wonder what it would taste like split 50/50 with the actual green leaves of a genmaicha….
Steep #1 // 20 min after boiling // 2-3 min
Steep #2 // 15 min after boiling // 2-3 min

Yesterday Kaylee wrote that this tea made her want popcorn. Based on that note, this tea became my “find a tea drinking inspiration from you dashboard” tea.

This is a pretty good Genmaicha. I’m not getting much hojicha, but I agree with Kaylee, it’s a bit like popcorn. A little salty, a little nutty, a bit roasty. I’m going to steep it just a hair less next time, but all in all I like this one.

I’ve had genmaicha and I’ve had hojicha, but I’ve never had a blend of the two. The golden brew smells like burnt popcorn. It tastes of toast, rice, and nuts with a touch of sweetness at the end. Not bad, but it’s making me crave real popcorn.

The more I drink this one the more I taste. Sitting her enjoying this cup I really feel like i should be enjoying sushi with it. In my head I totally am. The seaweed taste is quite strong and the roasted flavor of the toasted rice mixes well. I start to get the sensation of eating sushi rolls. There is no fishy taste, but I think I keep imagining it. When I’ve finished the cup I definitely have the aftertaste of a nice fresh sushi roll in my mouth. It’s really very strange.

Thanks, MissB for sending this one my way. I am glad to find that I do like more than just the one Genmaicha from Whispering Pines.

This one doesn’t smell too appealing as dry leaf. Very seaweedy, but it steeps up very nicely and I really like how that seaweedy green tea tastes with the genmaicha. I will happily enjoy the rest of this sample!

thanks for sharing this one with me dexter this one isn’t too shabby but like most genmaicha’s…it tastes like genmaicha to me. neither better, nor worse than any that i’ve had. So a cup i enjoyed drinking but nothing ZOMG MUST have, since i don’t have a lot of room for genmaicha in my cupboard…ok so i room for two. nina’s and verdant’s black one haha

This one is really interesting. It starts out roasty, and I thought that would be all there is to it, but then it moves into a sort of seaweed flavor. That part of it could be overwhelming, but it manages to be smooth. The aftertaste is completely unexpected, but what I taste is cinnamon or nutmeg. It’s a nice, balanced cup that has a lot of flavors in it I wasn’t expecting.

Backlog:

Oh yay! I’m getting closer and closer to being caught up. I mean … I’m almost like … just one month behind now.

This was in January’s amoda box. I was a wee bit disappointed by January’s box, only because December was AWESOME … (February’s is pretty awesome too, for that matter), but in January’s box … they repeated a tea. Not this tea, this is one I hadn’t tried before so I was happy about that … but they did repeat a tea and I don’t want to buy ‘repeat’ samplers. You know? I’m a taster. I’m a sampler. And when I buy a sampler from a company, I want it to be teas that I haven’t tried before.

Anyway, enough of that and on to this tea.

I am very glad that this tea was in January’s box. A delicious Genmai! I love that the roasty-toasty-ness of the toasted rice is accentuated with the roasted Hojicha tea. It makes for a really delicious, deep caramel-y yumm-o sort of taste.

Warm, cozy, and tasty!

Sipdown!! (162)

So long tasty genmaicha. This is one of the better genmaichas I have tried and if I did not have Japon I might have felt compelled to stock up on it. Thank you Cavocorax for introducing me to this tea.

Thank you Cavocorax for sharing this with me. I am really enjoying this genmaicha. I think the use of a roasted hojicha base helps to emphasize the toasty rice flavor. Yum…

Backlog (from this past week). I thought this was fairly weak and boring, though the base flavour was decent, and I’m relieved to see that I labelled this as reasonably boring last time I had it too. I think maybe I need to use a bit more leaf to amp up the flavour, because it’s not really a bad tea at all, I think the popped rice is maybe not adding as much flavour as the tea leaves, yet taking up room in the measuring spoon… you know. Anyhow, still have some left to try, if I remember this!

Pleasantly surprised to find this in my January Amoda tea box – I’ve discovered that I like hojicha, and I like toasty rice in my tea, and therefore I like this sort of combination. I don’t think this is the first of its kind that I’ve tried (I could be wrong, though), but the flavour was about as expected – sweet, toasty, and ricey. No green-ness. A fairly boring yet flavourful/comforting tea to have with a meal or on its own. (And I only mean boring in the sense that there aren’t as many flavours swirling around, IMO). Anyhow, tasty, and a good pick for a tea box.

This is an interesting tea that I probably would never have tried on my own, but am happy to have had stumble into my path.

I remember having genmaicha over a year ago and enjoying it, but not enough to drink it over my favourite black teas. I don’t know what it is about this one that makes it different, but I really enjoyed this one. The soft buttery notes and the strong toastiness are such a great combo. I immediately re-steeped this after I drank it, and then gave 1/3 of that cup to my demanding daughter who walked around with it in her bottle for a bit before she drank it all.

I’ll have to check out Sara’s Tea Caddie in the spring once I feel even more like drinking green teas!

This was another tea I received as a sample at the World Tea Expo from Sara.

The dry leaves were comprised of 100% unbroken, dark green tea leaves with absolutely no dust. The unbrewed leaves smelled vegetal, while the brewed leaves were more sweet and grassy. They expanded and turned a beautiful forest-green. After a few seconds, I noticed a new floral note which seemed to dominate over the grassy quality.

The brewed tea was completely clear unlike some sencha teas which tend to be murky. The color was bright yellow, and smelled just as the brewed leaves. The first brew was very refreshing and rather grassy- floral notes were only present in the finish. The second brew was more floral, and I noticed a slight milky quality. The third steeping was much the same as the second, only sweeter.

The tea had recurring flavors throughout the multiple steepings, but in different combinations. For the fourth and final brew, I noticed that the scent of the tea was reminiscent of milky oolongs, and was sweet and floral. This brew wasn’t vegetal or grassy at all.

Over all, this was a very pleasant tea, and I’m glad to have been able to sample it. I wrote this review about 7 months ago on paper, and decided it was overdue to be posted.

At the World Tea Expo, I was given many samples of tea from many different companies. Over the course of several days, I had many interesting conversations with Sara, the company’s founder, regarding the tea she carries. This is the first sample she gave me for review.

Leaf Quality:
The dark green tea leaves were mostly intact or whole. However, there was a small amount of tea dust as well as broken leaves. I was surprised by the floral notes of the leaves’ aroma; it mingled well with the other sweet and grassy qualities. The brewed leaves smelled less grassy than dry, and lightened up quite a bit. The color transformed from a dark green to a chartreuse. Some of the leaves formed a light blanket over the top of the brewing tea. They smelled the sweetest after the third steeping.

Brewed Tea:
The tea was a rich chartreuse, darker than that of the brewed leaves. The brew was a bit murky and wasn’t completely clear; the top was frothy as well. It smelled very sweet and grassy. I noticed nutty and vegetal qualities in the flavor, along with the ones previously mentioned. This was quite refreshing.
Second Steeping
The second brew smelled only grassy, yet still tasted nutty. The vegetal qualities had increased, only allowing any sweetness to show up in the finish.
Third Steeping
This brew smelled the same as the second. The flavor however was very sweet and not nearly as vegetal as the second. There was no bitterness in this cup- no nuttiness either.
Fourth Steeping
Surprisingly, nutty qualities were again present in this brew. The taste was sweet and nutty.

The same qualities of aroma and flavor were present throughout, but in different combinations. Each brew tasted different with nearly the same characteristics.

This Sencha was sweeter than most I’ve tasted, and was definitely enjoyable.