I’ve found a green tea that I like!!! Actually, I really like it! I picked this up at the Whole Foods in Winston Salem, NC. I’ve been working in NC since Monday morning and just got back today. Yay!
I was upset that Whole Foods didn’t have Ito En’s Golden Oolong (my favorite of theirs) and picked this out purely due to the “roasted” aspect. I’m not a green tea lover. I’ve tried to like it. I want to like it. But I just…don’t. I will say that I enjoy green tea blends. But frankly, the components in the “blend” usually mask most of the green tea flavor. Samovar’s Moorish Mint comes to mind. I love that blend…and it contains green tea. But do I taste it? No, not really. I’ve found that if I think of straight up green tea as a broth or veggie soup of some sort, I can usually finish most of the cup. I’m just not into the vegetal taste.
Anyway, I was brave and picked up this Green Hoji. It doesn’t taste like a typical green tea at all. Very roasted, coffee notes…no vegetal taste at all. It smells like burnt peanuts…and I mean that in the best of ways. It also smells and tasted kind of like that puffed wheat breakfast cereal. There is a bitterness, but it’s not an over-steeped type of bitterness. It works for the tea. It’s rich, dark roasted, peanutty, puffed wheat goodness. As far as bottled teas go, this one is a real winner.
I’ll be sure to seek out roasted green teas in the future.
