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I have been making a concerted effort to drink more green tea for the past couple of days. I have been so wrapped up in black teas and oolongs lately that I have been seriously neglecting all of the green teas I have acquired over the last several months. After reviewing the Sencha from Touch Organic last night, I was having trouble sleeping (too much caffeine earlier in the day), and after resigning myself to not getting much sleep, decided to stay up and read. Oddly, I started craving genmaicha and realized I still had some of this left, so I had some. This morning I then discovered that I had never previously reviewed this tea. Now I’m taking care of that.

I prepared this tea using a three step Western infusion process. I started off by steeping 1 teaspoon of the loose tea and rice mix in approximately 8 ounces of 160 F water for 1 minute 30 seconds. The recommended water temperature seemed a bit low to me, but I decided to roll with it anyway. I followed this initial infusion up with a 45 second and a 1 minute 30 second infusion.

Prior to infusion, I picked up lovely aromas of toasted rice, grass, hay, and nuts. Even with my sinuses draining, these aromas came through loud and clear. After infusion, the aromas described above intensified and were joined by a slight seaweed scent. In the mouth, mild, smooth notes of butter, soybean, spinach, hay, straw, grass, and seaweed balanced much more pronounced notes of chestnut and toasted rice. The second infusion was nuttier and grainier on the nose and in the mouth. It also offered a touch of minerals on the back of the throat. The final infusion was subtly grassy, vegetal, and briny, offering a mild toasted rice note under lingering aromas and flavors of grass, hay, spinach, minerals, and seaweed.

I don’t really get the lowish rating for this tea here on Steepster. This genmaicha offered a lovely toasted rice character that was authentic and adequately balanced by the lighter, grassier bancha. While I do not drink a ton of genmaicha, I have encountered far worse. For the money, I found this one to be very good. I would recommend that anyone looking to get into this type of tea or looking for a daily drinker start here.