This is actually the third time I’ve had this. It was one of the teas I got in Doulton’s gift, and it was one of the two that I picked myself. I like genmaichas and I’m not sure what the ’malted’ness was supposed to be like. Also I couldn’t figure out what the glass of milk had to do with anything. Lexitus tried to offer an explanation using wikipedia and small words, but I’m still pretty much blank as to the glass of milk.
I gather it’s a special kind of milk that tastes malt-y. This is the sort of thing that can’t really wrap my head around. Why would you do that to milk? What’s wrong with milk-flavoured milk? Milk tastes lovely the way it is! You foreigners do some odd things to perfectly fine milk, I have to say. See in Denmark we have chocolate milk and a variety milk milks with different fat percentages. The end. (And of course a range of various yoghurt products) We get by fine on that. I’m sure you lot are all OMG O.O at this, like the time I revealed to the a bunch of americans over on LJ that in Denmark we don’t have condensed milk either except for possibly industrial kitchens and such. It’s just not something we use.
Anyway, so yeah. The point of this is that malt-y milk is a really weird concept for me. One thing is unnecessary flavour in milk, but malt and milk? I’m sorry, it just strikes me as a somewhat bizarre combination. I can’t imagine that at all.
So I was curious. Against my better judgement yes, but still curious.
I can certainly smell the malt when I open the pouch. It’s overwhelming! And frankly, it smells like molasses. Which is something I associate with horse food. Looking at the leaves themselves, it looks like what we’ve got is one part green tea and two parts puffed rice. Erm… shouldn’t it have been the other way around, balance wise? I mean I want tea with puffed rice. I don’t want puffed rice extract garnished with tea. (And smelling of horse food) So not a lot of points on aroma and look of leaves here.
This being my third cup out of three different sessions so I’m pretty sure I’ve got a consistent flavour out of it, and as one would have guessed from leaf appearance, I’ve got rice flavour like whoa.
And that’s pretty much it, really. Rice, rice, rice, rice, rice, rice. And then on the swallow a hint of sencha and a little maltyness which thankfully isn’t reminding me of horse food. That much.
I like genmaichas. But this is way too rice-y and I’m still not getting what the glass of milk has to do with anything. Is there supposed to be milk flavour in here too somewhere? If so, I’m not finding it.
I can’t really decide if I kind of like this, if I like it enough for it to be drinkable, or if I don’t like it at all. It’s definitely not something I would invest in or something I would ask for another time. I think I’ll go with drinkable on this one and that’s it.
On the upside I’ve used almost all of what Doulton sent me just to get this far, so I won’t have to struggle through a lot of it or find someone else to pass it on to. But I’ll probably add some more sencha to what I do have left, so it isn’t so rice-rice-rice-rice-rice-y.
I’m quite disappointed that I didn’t like it more than this. The majority of others who have posted about it thought it was all kinds of awesome, and I’m feeling a little left out that I can’t find the awesomeness. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, me not being used to this whacky milk flavour? I’m sure we have super-common food products in Denmark that you lot would find bizarre too.
