Genmaicha

My husband and I have been drinking this a lot just to finish it up. This wasn’t the best genmaicha I’ve tried. It is average or a little below average. The flavors were weak. With this tea blend in particular, this had a lot of rice and popcorn and very few sencha leaves. Overall, I’m not impressed. I’ve been spoiled by other genmaichas. I must say though that genmaicha has never disappointed me. This one was just meh.

Meh! A bit plain for me, I fear I have been spoiled by the Genmaicha from Obubu Teas.

Picked up a bag of this stuff when I was passing by The Argo Tea in Chicago. (I’d always wanted to go in there, but to no avail. This time, my mother was with me and she wanted to try the teas too.)
This is a FABULOUS savory tea. I have never loved green tea much, and although I’m new to the green teas, I really enjoy this. This tea does not shy away from a nice full bodied flavor. Very, very tasty. :)

A nice super rice heavy genmaicha. Not my favorite though, I like ones that have some matcha thrown in for good measure. Still a good basic genmaicha that I like to have in the afternoon, it also makes me super hungry.

An interesting blend of roasted brown rice and green tea. I didn’t really know what to expect when trying this, and wasn’t really sure what I thought after my first cup. I went off to do research, learning that genmaicha was originally consumed by poor Japanese and became known as the “people’s tea”.

I had multiple cups, playing with the steeping time and temperature, the most successful of which is to use boiling water, steeping for anywhere between 30 seconds to a minute, pouring into a cup and letting it cool for a bit. The resulting tea has the scent of the roasted rice and the flavor is difficult to describe, but, it’s smooth and delicious to me, in this particular blend I can barely taste the green tea, most of the flavor is of the rice. After the 7th cup of this or so today, I think I have to allow myself to like it because I keep drinking it…

I’ve found I generally don’t like the vegetal note of unflavored Green Teas—Hojicha, which is atypical in being roasted, is an exception. It was suggested I might want to try Genmaicha as well. So when I dropped into this tea shop and saw I could buy a cup I thought I’d give it a try. Mind you, at $2.67 for a small cup, I could almost buy a couple of ounces at TeaSource or Adagio. But it was a chance to see if I’d like it w/o going through the fuss of an online order.

It was… weird. Unlike anything I’ve tasted in tea, and by this time I’m not exactly a newbie. I could taste a bit of that vegetal note, and it tasted savory somehow, like a broth, and somewhat bitter. I didn’t think I’d like it. But the more I drank, the more it grew on me. I could taste that popcorn-like nutty taste coming through. I’m glad I gave it a try, though I’m still left unsure I’d want to order it again.

This particular Genmaicha has a stronger “roasted-like” flavour than others that I have tried, so it was a great addition to my tea collection.

Though green tea isn’t always my first choice, I’ve always loved the incorporation of the popped rice. I definitely was not disappointed by Argo Tea’s version. Definitely worth trying if you’re looking for a more bodied flavour.

I couldn’t help but to cold brew this one again because I really enjoyed it last time. It’s definitely heavy on the toasted rice flavor when I prepare it this way. Still waiting to rate this until I have it hot as well, so let’s hope I get around to doing that before I use it all up on cold brewing!