Genmai Hojicha

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.

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!

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.

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 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!