Matcha Kirara Rice

This was one of the many teas in my happy bag from Lupicia—not exactly a tea I was dying to try but hey, you can never have enough genmaicha! I’ve tried quite a few but only one other with matcha, Den’s Extra Green which is, to date, my favorite genmaicha.

Probably the best thing about this tea is the nuclear green color. Green tea + matcha looks like toxic goop! But, you know, in an appetizing way. The base isn’t as pleasantly grassy and sweet as Den’s version, in fact the green flavor is pretty much overrun by the nuttiness of the popped rice. Wow, is it ever strong! Not in a bad way, it’s just extra toasty. The matcha adds some thickness but I’m not sure if there’s a substantial taste from it—at least, I’m not getting any brothy, vegetal buttery notes like I do in Den’s. Not to say that this isn’t a good tea, I’m just holding it up to a pretty fantastic blend.

You know, I’ve been thinking about mixing my own matcha + genmaicha with KaiMatcha, imagine how tasty THAT would be… maybe with Den’s Houji genmaicha? Hmm… time for an experiment, I think.

Tea #48 from HHTTB2

This cup brews up the brightest spring green I’ve ever seen. (It is almost exactly this: http://bit.ly/1aDM5S5 color.) So it looks a little weird and out of place in my blue snowman mug. But whatever.

Genmaicha is like ye old standby tea in our house. When neither Fiance nor I know what we feel like drinking? Genmaicha. That said, we usually have a bit of it floating around. (As an aside, I’ve been cooking with it lately too. Makes an excellent soba noodle broth. Nom.) And genmai + matcha has been my more recent go-to in those situations. So I’m always excited to try some more!

There’s no bitterness in my cup, and the flavor is warming, roasty, and flavorful, but I wish there was more sweet, grassy green veggie flavor in here. I think the matcha flavor comes through better in Den’s version. American Tea Room makes a pretty solid Genmaimatcha, too. This one misses some of the brothy notes I get from those too.

If you go to genmaicha for primarily the roasty rice notes, though, this is definitely a cup to consider.

Another genmaicha tea I’ve been drinking lately, and I used up the whole bag rather quickly. Eep! I love both the color the matcha adds to this and a little bit of sweetness. For some reason matcha doesn’t affect me in a caffeine kind of way, I just feel a little more awake and really mellow. Also got a little bit of sesame and rice krispie flavor in this.

i have had a few genmais but after a couple of months of not having had much tea (when i got back to the philippines, i didnt have water heating implements and time to get some and prepare some tea so i subsisted on matcha mixed with cool water to keep me awake in class, thanks to Red Leaf Tea i was able to pay attention to biochem this summer) when i had this, i was like…transported to japan! ah, it is wonderful to have good tea on hand!

Thanks to Azz for this swap! Im enjoying every sip of it!

Snagged this tea in my Lupicia Happy bag, Fukubukuro, along with 8 other teas. I’m making mochi tonight – pizza mochi in fact http://youtu.be/e59erF1YiFA but that’ll be later in the night, too late for me to have matchy tea, so I can’t pair the pizza with my tea, boo!

STEEPED: Pale spring green. Obviously matcha in this, but the colour is a good green, like I busted out some of my good matcha and not the lower quality browny matcha.

TASTE: Rice toastyness, light green tea flavor, bit of sweetness. Very fresh tasting at first sip, little bitterness at the end. I did a 45 second steep, might try 30 seconds next time.

COMMENTS: Pretty good genmaicha. I like the pairing of the matcha in this tea. I’m not a genmaicha expert, I’ve had two similar teas, one bagged and another I got from the LA farmers market. This one is much better, less bitter and actually sweet! Right now, I actually don’t have any matcha genmaicha and have been adding my own matcha to some regular genmaicha – this one does better than my tea experiments.

Into the swap box this one goes. It’s not a bad tea but the matcha really doesn’t add anything to the taste as far as I can figure out and it’s a pretty “average” genmaicha. there are a number of others i would drink before this one. Again, though, that’s more of a personal preference than this tea being a “bad” tea. If you enjoy genmaicha’s this one would probably be a tea you’d enjoy. I, on the other hand like them on occasion only, and therefore want to stick to the truly exceptional ones that i have had :)

Ah, the last of the free teabags! I feel somewhat accomplished today in working on getting my tea under control. Sure, I’ve got a bit to go to finish off all of my one- and two-cups-worth-of-leaves teas that I have have, but I’ve made progress! And had 6 different teas today! Why, no! I’m not caffeinated at all!

Samovar has ruined me for any genmaicha + matcha. This one is just plain and boring. No thick, creamy flavor. Just a murky cup of neon green, puffed rice tasting, thinnish tea. I want more punch! I want more creaminess! I want Ryokucha.

Meh.

ETA: As it cools, it almost tastes like I made this with funky tasting water. Which I didn’t. So that would be the tea. And even though the flavor seems weak, the bottom dregs of the cup were bitter. Yeah, that takes if from a ‘meh’ to something slightly unhappier.

additional notes: This favorite is finally a sipdown (with a best by date on the pouch of 2013- yikes!) But somehow the flavor held up. I thought it time to finish it as I bought Tealyra’s matcha genmaicha to replace it. I really like Lupicia’s though! And this batch really aged well – no off flavors for a green tea OR matcha which is magic, I think.
2022 sipdowns: 102

The dry tea smells like seaweed paper (think: sushi) to me. Once the water hit the tea, I immediately smelled toasted rice. The hot tea prominently tastes like toasted rice. But as the tea cooled, it began to get more of a green tea taste. The green tea does have a slight seaweed flavour to it. I find the tea to taste slightly salty. This is different then other genmaicha’s I have tried, but I think it is a different kind of green tea (and also the matcha). I like any food or tea made from a grain, and this genmaicha is no exception.

Thanks Sil for this sample!

This tea was a true experience! I haven’t tried genmaicha before, so I’m taking my own exuberance with a grain of salt, but I really enjoyed this tea.

Out of the box, the dry leaves smell of matcha and sencha – that familiar fresh, vegetal goodness. I didn’t notice the rice adding to the aroma yet, but altogether, the sencha, and matcha-covered kernels made for a pretty presentation as they sat in my kyusu waiting for the hot water.

As soon as the hot water hit the kyusu, WOW! Warm, nutty, wheaty, rice smell that was familiar – like Rice Crispies cereal without the note of sugar. Wasn’t sure how that would mesh with the matcha and sencha to sip.

In the cup, it makes for a smoky, rich, complex sencha flavor. Nutty smoke to start, then vegetal, buttery sencha as the sip completes.

I’m afraid I’ve found yet another favorite to keep in my cupboard!