392 Tasting Notes
Okay this tea iced = bad. Like really bad. Definitely only gonna have this one hot. Deducting a few points.
LOL :-) sorry for the bad experience. I can say I have never had this cold but I can imagine it may not be the best.
Its okay I loved it hot. I just had a bit of my pot left and so I stuck it in the fridge and figured I would try it – haha – oh well.
I would do that too. Never hurts to try. Could get lucky and find something you may otherwise not like.
yeah I figure might as well try
Facing my fears tea 3! This one I don’t have anything against roses but I have only ever gotten them as presents never had them as a consumable item. I have never really had any floral teas. Thanks again Rachel for the opportunity to try another new tea!
I really like this tea. I am not sure I can exactly describe what about it I like. It is like a nice black tea with a smooth undertone that I am assuming is the rose. Anyway it is a really nice relaxing while at the same time energizing cup of tea. A real mood lifter!
Also this is tasting note number 200 – Woot!!!
Tea 2 of facing my fears day! Unfortunately this one isn’t as much of a pleasant surprise as the first tea. This smells like SPEARMINT, like really hits you in the face with it. I really dislike spearmint which is weird because I love mint, but spearmint, just ick!!
In addition to smelling like spearmint this tastes like spearmint (kind of like spearmint orbit) and it has this weird feeling when I drink it. It kinda makes my mouth numb like mouthwash. So even if I liked spearmint that alone would be a major ick factor. I think I may have to give this tea away because I don’t know how I am gonna polish off 2oz of this. I can barely finish this cup.
But oh well…having fun trying teas I am scared of anyway!
I couldn’t drink the Adagio spearmint sample I had… I love peppermint, but spearmint is a whole ‘nother beast. It’s got a different sort of tingle to it.
Yeah – its kind of one of those things you like or you don’t
I had an epiphany in the car today- you could try blending it w/ an equal part watermelon black… or freeze a cup of watermelon and blend it w/ a cup of this chilled. :)
Hmm…that does sound pretty good
I would normally suggest using 2x the leaf when you use any other than tea cubes for ices, but since you aren’t big on spearmint, maybe you shouldn’t.
Haha – yeah probably not… for me the appeal of watermelon would be diluting the spearmint flavor – haha
True lol. I just think the combo would be amazing. I want to try making a matcha version- 1/2 cup frozen watermelon, 1/2 cup 2x strength mint tisane, 1tsp matcha :)
Thats sounds pretty yummy – I still have yet to try matcha though
You should! Like now=D hehe
Its definitely on my teas to try list!
Do you have a Jamba Juice near you? They have it.
Unfortunately no, but I’ll remember that – thanks!
Today is face your fears day! I am going to try a bunch of teas that I have been apprehensive about tasting. I decided to start with this one.
I am really not a fan of grapefruit, the real thing or things flavored like it. So obviously I was worried about this tea. The dry leaves smell like…no kidding… oregano? I have no idea why but its not an unpleasant thing for tea to smell like. The steeping tea smells like something I can’t quiet put my finger on maybe tomato. I don’t know why I am getting so many savory scents from a fruit flavored tea but oh well.
The tea tastes like a standard black tea with a hint of something. I wouldn’t guess it to be grapefruit. Again it seems more of a savory flavor. Luckily it doesn’t taste anything like grapefruit to me so I was able to enjoy the cup. Hopefully the rest of my experiences today go this well.
Preparation
Sounds like you have an exciting tea day ahead of you! I’m looking forward do to reading about it!=D
Haha – yeah I decided to make my Saturday tea experience interesting
For both drinker and readers!
Several of our in-store regulars love the grapefruit with a tiny pinch of salt. Might give that a shot.
Ok, that’s a combo I would have NEVER thought of.
that sounds really interesting
I decided to have this with some oreo cheesecake! It was an awesome pairing! Really improved my night :)
I had an oreo brownie cheesequake blizzard last nite- this tea would have been awesome w/ it.
mmm – that sounds good. I bet a strawberry cheesecake would be good with the banana flavored tea I have as well
Yeah I have a feelin I’ll be passing off the banana lol.
I take it you don’t like banana?
The only thing banana I like is actual bananas.
haha – I can understand that. a lot of time fruit flavored things taste way worse than their real-life counterparts
Never had this kind of tea before. Thanks Rachel for letting me try this!
This tea smells and tastes like liquid rice cakes. I am really enjoying the savory flavors of this tea. I need to save the rest of this and let my boyfriend try it, because I am trying to get him into more tea and currently he only like lapsang souchong. He likes salty things better then sweet and considers most tea sweet so I think this would be right up his alley. I might need to buy more of it. Its very different then anything I currently have and its yummy!
One of only 2 greens I don’t like. I don’t mind the popped corn in it, but I can do w/o the rice.
I really like ricecakes and popcorn so this tea is good with me – haha. What’s the other kind out of curiosity?
Hojicha. I don’t like anything roasty toasty. Don’t like roasted oolongs either.
I haven’t tried either of those so I can’t really comment – haha
I love Genmaicha. There’s no real popcorn in this tea. When you roast rice kernels they can sometimes pop like popcorn and provide a similar smell and tasty flavor.
Actually this one does have popcorn but this pariticular pot of tea had like 2 pieces of popcorn and like 40 pieces of rice.
Even though Adagio calls it Popcorn Green I don’t really think it has popcorn in it. The rice kernels are popped as happens with all Genmaicha regardless of source.
It’s often called popcorn tea because the popped rice looks like little popcorn kernels. I’ve never come across a Genmaicha with actual popcorn in it and would be very surprised if it did.
Tea-Guy, if Caitlin says there is then I believe her. She has no reason to be dishonest about ingredients in tea. I didn’t realize rice could pop. The rice I’ve seen in Gen Mai Cha hasn’t. You are correct that Not all Gen Mai Cha has popped corn, but yes some do.
I am going off adagio’s description which says there is both rice and popcorn and these little white pieces in the tea… I must admit I am not sure I would be able to tell the difference between popcorn and rice, but I don’t think adagio would lie about ingredients.
Please understand I’m not calling anyone a liar. Adagio’s site does indicate they include popcorn with this tea, though I’ve never seen this done.
As noted, I’m surprised they would include popcorn in this tea since the rice kernels will pop anyway, the inclusion of corn is a little odd for this wonderful tea.
I’ll contact Ilya over at Adagio to learn more.
You have a point… this is Adagio. I have seen popped corn in Gen Mai Cha, but there may not be any in this even though they say there is. I know there was nothing that even looked like popped corn in my sample about 6 months ago.
I have a tin of their Genmaicha here and I know I see the popped kernels but they’re not from corn kernels.
My Genmaicha from Harney & Sons, Obubu, MotoYamaMoto and Ujinotsuyu all appear very similar. Some with differing quality of tea, but all with the kernels. I’m just waiting to hear back from Ilya. I’m curious.
Make that YamaMotoYama (I’m a little off with this migraine).
Let me know what you find out – I am curious too
Here’s the response I got:
Chris,
The genmai cha does in fact have popped rice, but since most people have never heard of the phenomenon of popping rice, we simply call it popcorn.
Hope that helps,
Ilya
Thats interesting and weird, I mean I know popped rice isn’t common, but I think people would understand the concept – haha
LOL, this is so funny and it is true that it is popped rice as stated, I think they call it popcorn to just be cute and interesting. Nevertheless, I am psyched you enjoyed this tea. It was a last minute inclusion to your package. Based on your cupboard and as I recall you are still fairly new to tea I thought you would enjoy trying something a little different and I am glad you did. Hope you BF does too. Keep us posted.
@Rachel: Yeah I have been drinking tea for years but only bagged unflavored blacks, I started getting into loose leaf only about 6 months ago. It has been an awesome experience. And I have really been enjoying trying all the different teas you sent me!!! Thanks again! I will be sure to keep putting out tasting notes on mine and ocassionally the bf’s opinion on the teas!
I really enjoyed this tea. It smelled like a vanilla pumpkin pie I made for Thanksgiving one year. It tastes creamy and spicy and a bit like pumpkin. The only problem was for some reason the bottom of the cup was extremely astringent, just like the last 2 sips. Very weird. Maybe I over-steeped it but the rest of the cup was perfect. I did accidentally for get to set the timer so my timing was more of a guess but there was no it steeped more than 5 and a half minutes. hmmm. Well I have more so I can try again another time because minus that I throughly enjoy this tea.
Must get this and then add chai spices to it. Or better yet, Frank should make a Mayan Chocolate spice mix!
That sounds yummy
Any chance you have some of this tea you can spare? Been dying to try it. Pretty please! :-)
Yeah sure send me a PM with your address – be forewarned it might take a while to get over to the post office – haha
No problem…thanks I really appreciate it :-)