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Wow. Long week and even worse one coming up. Three exams in 2 days is never fun. Within these stressful days I was looking forward to getting my Samovar bundle of samples. Surprisingly they shipped within a day of ordering and I actually got it within 2 days of shipping. A+ service in my opinion. Delivery estimate was the 22-25th.. and I received it yesterday.

Anyway, I was eager to try the first of my tea samples, and what a better tea to kick it off with the ever popular Ryokucha. With all the ranting and raving I knew this stuff had to be good. I mean, if your going to call it “tea crack”, then I guess it’s got some serious credibility.

I followed the steeping instructions on the bag it came in. When I first opened it, the smell of Genmaicha hit me; very similar to the Adagio blend which I’ve been drinking for a couple weeks. The matcha was clearly visible; the pieces of brown rice were a vivid green and overall the smell was somewhat different that the Adagio Genmaicha. I’ll have to credit this to the matcha powder. I heated my water, poured the contents of the baggie into my infuser, poured my water in, and let it steep for a full 3 minutes. It brewed a bright green color. It looked quite delicious.

IMPRESSIONS:
When it first hits your palette, the brown rice flavor is definitely there. It stands out strong and lasts throughout the first sips. In terms of after-taste, I wasn’t getting the sweet, matcha flavor a lot of people were talking about. It was vegetative, but not so sweet. Then again, it was smooth; there was no harshness at all. The taste of Genmaicha was certainly there, although the matcha seemed to be a little hidden. I was a little disappointed in this regard. I did experience the “milkiness” towards the end of my cup, and then a noticed the matcha powder was sitting on the bottom. Maybe I needed to stir the tea around a bit before drinking. I ended up steeping a second and final time, although not much changed. I tasted the brown rice and vegetativeness of the tea but the milkiness was pretty masked by the other flavors. I will say however that between steeps I did have a sweet taste in my mouth. And this did make me want more :)

I guess my only gripe is that this didn’t taste much different than Adagio’s Genmaicha; maybe my sample wasn’t too great or perhaps I steeped it too long or too little. Other than that, it is a great genmaicha. I can see myself reordering.