NaturaliTea #06: Organic Genmaicha

I know it’s only genmaicha but I really love this one. I had previously bought genmaicha dusted with matcha, but the matcha added extra caffeine that I didn’t need at night and made the liquor murky. This is a high quality genmaicha that’s just regular sencha mixed with puffed brown rice and these popcorn looking pieces. Taste is very smooth and clean. Liquor is a clear, yellowish-green color. Good balance of toasty and grass flavors. It gives several tasty infusions and can easily be blended with matcha or plain sencha for some oomph.

I was a little bit worried about this genmaicha because it has something of a burnt smell to it, but none of that translated once I had steeped the tea. It’s a nice blend – toasty and nutty, rounded out by a subtle little astringency from the green tea. It also brews up to a very green liquor; much greener than any other green tea I own. There’s just something so comforting about a good genmaicha.

Got a sample of this tea from the sweet Rie T.!
Another pretty good genmaicha. It’s sweet and toasty. Oh how I do love a good genmaicha! ^^

Wow, first tasting note!

I ordered this from Yunomius about 3 months ago, and finally opened the package today. What greeted me was a fairly standard-looking mix of green tea leaves, roasted rice, and popped kernels.

Lately I’ve become a bit wary of genmaichas because I’ve experienced some that taste like burnt popcorn. Luckily, this one is not like that.

The flavour of the rice is there – roasty, a tad salty – but the green tea in this tastes quite fresh and grassy, and slightly astringent. I really liked how much the green tea popped in this one. I should definitely have enough in the sample left for another pot.