Ujinotsuyu

Bought from T&T supermarket, you can get 400 g of this tea for under $10 CAD (if I’m remembering correctly!) This genmaicha is a bit more umami than the Genmaicha and Matcha Genmaicha that I’ve tried from DAVIDsTEA, but it’s really delicious when steeped for 3 minutes in 180ºF water. When following those steeping parameters, the roasted rice notes are definitely prominent, but are perfectly complemented by the rather vegetal green tea. For me, genmaichas are not typically a tea I’d bother shelling out for, as the roasted rice notes tend to mask any of the astringent or vegetal qualities that can come from cheap green tea.

IYEMON brand is a famous and reasonable green tea in Japan. This tea’s flavor is soft bitter taste.

An excellent sencha with a smooth taste. I can typically still get a nice second steep out of the leaves.

I threw a couple of bags of this into a mug to drink during a meeting today and it ended up being really sweet! Just like sweetened toasted rice. First time having that experience with this tea.

So I wanted something to go into this training session I was assigned to lead at the last minute, and this was the only thing I had time to prepare. I had forgotten I had these in my drawer, to be honest!

I realized today that I probably made this with way too much water the first time I prepared it, as I’m pretty sure I used a full 10 oz when I made it in the past. I remember it having no flavor. I also had to use Keurig water, which was too cool. This time I followed the instructions and used only enough water to fill up about 1/3 of my mug at 100C and it turned out decent enough. With all the other great tea I have to drink up, this will probably just continue to sit in my drawer for whenever I can’t prepare anything else, but it’s perfectly good enough for that!

Taste like Chocolate

I find that cold brewing this tea suits me best. A heaped teaspoon steeped with 12-13oz of cold water in the fridge for 6-10 hours seems to do well (to my tastes). I generally steep the leaves at least twice, but the flavor drops off quickly after that. Flavors from the first steep are vegetal and slightly sweet, with little to no astringency. I find the second steep is usually slightly sweeter and can be more grassy.

I like to rinse my genmaicha in cold water before steeping it in semi-boiling water for 30 seconds.

SIPDOWN! (102)

This one wasn’t roasty enough for me before, so I figured I’d try a longer steep this time around and see if that intensified the toasted rice flavor. Noop. I still taste too much grassiness and not enough nommy roasty toastiness. This was my last traditional genmaicha, but I’m not too upset about it, considering I still have the lovely Laoshan Black Chocolate Genmaicha! And hooray, I’m almost under a hundred teas!

Too bad I have more on the way… hangs head.

Another sample from KiwiDelight. I’ve loved the genmaichas I’ve tried so far, so I was excited to sample another one. The dry leaves are small and flat, and there are some stems included. There is also toasted rice, which is much smaller than I’ve seen before. And everything is covered in a green dust of matcha. I was surprised when I took a sniff, because the dry tea doesn’t smell much like toasted rice, it mostly just smells like grass and leaves.

Well, the toasted rice aroma definitely came out while it was steeping! It made my whole kitchen smell, which was amazing. :D At first when I tasted the brewed tea, I got quite a bit of toasted rice flavor. But it seemed as I kept sipping, it moved more and more into the background and I could mostly just taste the tea. It’s quite grassy, with notes of autumn leaves and some kind of fresh vegetable taste that reminds me of celery or cucumber or something. When I finished the cup, the rice flavor came back as a lingering aftertaste.

I liked this tea, but I really would have liked more genmai flavor.

this is an awesome workhorse tea – powers you right through the afternoon on multiple cups, a different flavor personality every steep. my favorite i think is the second steeping, where there’s still some astringenty matcha-y creamy-yness, but it’s also starting to grassify. good stuff. i will keep in stock at my house, yes.

This is hands down the best green tea I’ve ever had. Very clean, fresh and hydrating, even with the savory genmai. A must-try for anyone who loves the taste of matcha.

After one of the teas I drank earlier made me think of soup, I decided to make some.

Brown Japanese rice, tinned tuna (better with grilled salmon, but you work with what you have!), red perilla rice sprinkles, a tiny drizzle of soy sauce, and tea!

So good. Chazuke is a lovely way to use up rice and tea. :)

A solid Genmaicha at a fantastic price (Even in NZ this stuff is usually rather cheap). Great with & after meals. Only downside being that because it’s quite a big bag (400g!), it can spoil before you get through it all. I’d also suggest transferring it to a container to help prevent this, as well as for ease since the bag it comes in rips/splits easily.

Comforting. Is a great substitute for my morning coffee. Roasty, light to med body. Not too sweet, earthy, slightly vegetal and smoky. Fairly clean aftertaste. A favourite!

Super toasty and nutty flavoured. You mainly get the ricey taste and not so much of the green tea. This is a great one to go with food and for the colder weather and you can easily get quite a lot of infusions out of it (the instructions on the bag recommend 20 sec steep times). On the other hand because it is SO toasty, it’s not something I can stand the taste of every day…