Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha

2 heaping tsp. tea to 500 ml. water at the below parameters in my Breville.

This is one of those teas that I tend to forget about, even though I really like it while I’m drinking it. It has just enough sweetness from the marshmallow to not need any other additives. It really is reminiscent of a rice krispy treat – albeit a slightly vegetal one.

I really do need to remember to have this one more often – it is a great option for a dessert tea!

Yay! A genmaicha! I love genmaicha! I really enjoyed this tea. I don’t have any other genmaicha (except, I think I have a swap from TastyBrew) so this will hold down the fort for now. The dry leaf did have an odd chemical smell, but it was gone once steeped. It tasted mostly of genmaicha, with marshmallow more in the aftertaste. Yum! Happy sweet genmaicha!

Received this in the Bestsellers sampler from Zoomdweebies kickstarter campaign.

Well I can see why this one is a bestseller!

I never really had any desire to try this tea before. I am not the hugest genmaicha fan. I like it but I usually gravitate to other teas.

Upon opening the bag, I am hit with a popcorn smell. And upon closer sniff, it smells like soba cha, which is one of my favs.

I quickly brewed this up. It mostly smells like soba cha to me, very light green tea smell. It tastes DELICIOUS. It is very light on the green tea, which is just slightly salty and seaweed-y but not overpowering. There is a lot of roasted wheat/buckwheat/grain smell, not quite popcorn-y, but close. At the very end of the sip I get a beautiful creamy melted marshmallow-y taste, but to me I guess it is more of a melted vanilla ice cream taste (you know when you leave hard ice cream out on the counter and it gets real soft, but it not melted into a puddle of liquid – delish).

Very impressed with this one, I didn’t think I would like it so much.

Edit – O HAY tasting note #50!! :)

Edit again – I shouldn’t have reviewed this before drinking a real genmaicha. This is way better, way sweeter. It’s what all genmaichas should taste like. Not quite a rice Krispies square and I’d definitely like more of a marshmallow flavour, but for a not super sweet and slightly marshmallowy version of genmaicha, this is great. I’m enough of a woman to admit when I’m wrong (except to my husband of course), so disregard below. I will bump the rating up from 70 because this has to be compared to a regular genmaicha, not some other sweeter dessert tea. I’m still tempted to throw a giant marshmallow in my cup to take it all the way, but I won’t. Now I want to own this tea, crap.

previous, uninformed review follows
-——————————————————————-

Big thanks to Sil again for a sample of this precious blend!

I have tried genmaicha only once before, and I’ve gotta say that this one didn’t taste a whole lot different than the regular one from what I remember of it!

First steep I really didn’t taste any marshmallow at all. From what I read in others’ reviews, there were two blends of this tea, one had actual marshmallows in it, the one I have does not. The way I feel is if you’re going to call something "Marshmallow __________ ", it better damn well taste like marshmallows! So I was disappointed. I don’t see the point of a flavored tea that really has no obvious flavor. I don’t need to be smacked in the face with it, but if you told me this was regular genmaicha, I’d believe you, that’s how little marshmallow taste there was.

Second steep actually tasted a bit more marshmallowy, which I guess was news to me considering I recently mentioned how I’ve never noticed a difference in taste between subsequent steeps of anything. So color me surprised.

In case you were wondering, my words taste good!

If you’ve read any of my reviews you know I prefer flavored teas to straight ones. I wouldn’t consider genmaicha to be a straight tea anyway, obviously, but this blend just tasted like slightly sweet nutty, crunchy toasty rice. It had a lot of the puffed rice in it, so that would explain it. I would have liked to try the blend with the actual marshmallow bits in it.

Will compare this to the plain genmaicha I have and be back to report my findings. For now I’ve gotta take points off for no major marshmallow taste. I might change that later!

(85 degrees C for about 3-4 min)

1.5 tbsp used for 375 ml

I will try to infuse this for a shorter amount of time but I am getting the same bleachy/maybe mildly coconutty dilute flavour which seems to take over the profile. Strong butter note in the background peeks through. I can imagine that this is the correct flavour profile that needs to come to the forefront. That taste blooms into a very accurate rice cereal marshmallow treat flavour which reminds me of biting into a homemade desserts. Still, this is all happening in the background and is muddled by the other flavours- I have to really focus on the taste to pick it out.

I will try to infuse this tea for a shorter length of time in the future.

Thanks CrowKettle!

Alright, maybe I just don’t have a good memory but I think this is my favourite of the 52 Teas genmaicha’s. It’s waaaaaay better than the s’mores genmaicha! Nutty! Sweet! I can almost imagine gooey marshmallows sticking in my mouth.

This would be the one I’d re-order if given the opportunity.

When I saw this had been reblended, I just had to order some. I LOVE genmaicha and it has been WAY too long since I’ve had any in my cupboard. The first infusion was fairly smooth and just really toasty plain, I added a pinch of sugar and the marshmallow emerged beautifully. On the second infusion now and it seems more balanced than the first. I’m really enjoying this one!

The dry notes are very sweet smelling, it smells almost like freshly made rice krispie squares. The steeped notes are that of puffed wheat, just like i got with another flavoured genmaicha.

It’s earthy, toasty and sweet. Almost vanilla like. I don’t find it tastes like a rice krispie square, but it sure is delicious.

52 teas tasting day! I want to try a bunch more samples from the bestsellers today, and this is the one I started with. The dry smell, first whiff was rice crispy squares, then it turned pretty strongly chemical. I let it air out for a bit and it seemed to help :) however when brewing, the chemicals disappeared completely (Huzzah!) and the toast rice smell took over. I brewed for 3 mins with about 180 degree water. After steeping a mild sweet marshmallow scent was present.

As for the taste, it’s pretty good. The toasty genmaicha flavor is definitely the strong point, and the marshmallow sweetness comes on afterwards. An interesting tea, but the sweetness seems a bit weird haha, my brain has a tough time figuring it out because it’s a genmaicha lol. Overall I think I prefer graveyard mist for a marshmallow tea tho, but it is love mint, so that could be why lol. Happy to have a bit more of this one to try though!

Since I was snapping up all the Graveyard Mist I could afford, and Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha was on offer at the same time, I bought two orders of that as well. I love teas with marshmallow root and was interested in trying the genmaicha with the toasted rice.

When I drank this tea, I recognized the flavor right away. First of all because of the toasty rice flavor, and secondly because I sweetened it, it tasted exactly like Super Golden Crisp cereal to me. I am not a huge fan of Super Golden Crisp cereal, but I kind of like this tea. I might trade away the unopened bag because it feels wrong to hang onto two bags of something that I only kind of like, though, especially since the supply was so limited.