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“Yum. Genmaicha has been one of my favorite teas since my macrobiotic diet days. I also drank a lot of twig tea by Choice Organic; I need to get that again someday. Anyway it’s been a busy weekend,...” Read full tasting note
“Got back late last night from my trip to Michigan where I sadly had hardly any tea. So what better way to get back into the swing of things than to drink my favorite tea. Oh…and some good news…I’m...” Read full tasting note
“I’m not gutsy enough to put boiled water over matcha, so that didn’t happen. But I needed a caffeinated pick me up to drag me through the rest of the day, so what than genmaicha with an extra dose...” Read full tasting note
“I’ve had a very stressful week traveling for work. No sleep. Working with annoying people. Argh! I took a bunch of tea with me to try. While I didn’t have ideal brewing conditions, I was still able...” Read full tasting note
This is Den’s Tea special blend of Genmaicha with Matcha. This blend uses a tea ceremony grade of matcha and quality Bancha.
Origin: Shizuoka
Harvest: A Blend of 2009 First & Second Harvests
Species: Yabukita
Tasting Profile:
Highly aromatic tea. The Matcha contributes its natural sweetness to the full nutty flavor of the Genmaicha.
Den’s Preferred Brewing:
Water: 4oz boiled
Leaves: 2 grams or 1 rounded teaspoon
Steep: 30 sec
2nd Cup: Water Boiled; Steep 15 sec
For a cup of Iced Tea: Put 50% more amount of tea leaves into a teapot. Steep as directed for hot tea. Once you brew it, put ices into the cup to lock in the aroma.
Company description not available.
I know I’m not supposed to make tea this way, but it tastes so good when I don’t follow directions. I used 2 tsp with 8 oz of 208 degree water for 3 minutes. Yeah, its green but it tastes nutty and toasty and way much better than the last time I made it. It smells just like it tastes too. I can drink this green tea made this way. I’m thinking my love for Yunnans and Assams is making me jaded. Now I have to try some macha.
“Best enjoyed by August 2011” Um, oops.
It’s not that I haven’t had this tea in over a year, it’s that I apparently suck at FIFO’ing my tea; I’ve been using the fresher packets with no knowledge that this one existed. But I dug it out while doing tea inventory and kind of felt bad for neglecting it.
So today I find out what, uh, “aged Genmaicha” tastes like. It’s not bad. Just kind of flat and not a whole lot of flavor. It’s still got the nice toastiness I love from the brown rice, but that really dominates over everything else. I guess the rice doesn’t lose its flavor as quickly as the actual tea.
Japanese greens are wonderful, but they seem to go stale so much more quickly than other teas (the processing method, I believe) so I try not to keep a lot of them on hand at once. Too bad it’s not really economical to order one packet of tea at a time with shipping costs and all.
It’s kind of a shame; this is one of my favorite Japanese green teas when it hasn’t been lost in a dark corner for years. I am sorry, tea, I will try to be a bit more vigilant about drinking you before you go stale >:
“Um, oops.” LOL! I’m sorry your tea went stale, but this tasting note really made me laugh. :)
Haha! I’m glad someone else got a giggle out of it, at least.
FIFO, eh? Were you/are you a programmer, by chance? ;)
I wish! But no, I’ve just worked a few jobs in stores selling perishables, for which we use the same logic :P
I am finishing the last of the Genmaicha Extra Green that I received as part of the Green Tea Sampler pack from Den’s Tea. Yum! Delightful roasted rice flavor, sweet green tea, just a touch of bitter, delicious! Green tea doesn’t get much better than Genmaicha!
Yummy. Can definitely taste the sweet matcha, though not terribly specifically, but more as a muted sweetness that makes the popcorn taste not so strong. Interested in trying this in a teapot, not a bag like I had to use for work.
This is GOOD, it is one from my sampler and we’ll chalk this up to another good green! I get a nice toasted flavor to this tea from the toasted rice. But I think its the matcha bringing the hint of sweet the cup. There isn’t much veggie to this tea for me and I am liking that. I did get the pouch variety with the sample, but if/when I order I would get loose. Really who knew I could actually learn to like green tea?
This review is for the bagged version that I received in my sampler, not the loose leaf version.
After all these flavoured teas tonight, I felt like I needed something straight and reliably delicious. I was going to go upstairs and grab something from my Verdant stuff, but as it happened, my Den’s sampler was downstairs (I was weighing potential mailable cardboard boxes), so I was lazy and selected two teas from it! Not regretting that decision at all!
So opening up the lovely foil-wrapped package, I’m greeting by green powder everywhere and a lovely toasty rice/green tea aroma. Mmmmmmm. I was a bit sad that the matcha had come out of the bag, until I realized that had it not come out, that would indicate that the teabag was entirely non-porous and therefore useless for brewing tea. So I guess it’s inevitable. Haha.
I wasn’t really sure what parameters to use for the teabag, so went with boiling water for a minute, resulting in tea of a cloudy yellowish colour. The aroma is typical of genmaicha: toasty rice.
Taste-wise I’m finding this to be a very smooth genmaicha. I can’t really say that the matcha is at all apparent. The tea is slightly sweetish, with a lovely toasty rice cake flavour.
Not bad, but I prefer my unbranded years-old genmaicha, probably because it has more flavour. I have higher hopes for the loose leaf version of this tea, which I’ll try another day. I think this entry was really meant for the loose leaf version, so I’m reserving a rating until then. This tea bag version would probably rate about a 72 on my scale.
In all honesty, it’s difficult to find a Genmaicha with Matcha I don’t like. I love the toasty smell and taste, the sweetness of the matcha, the cloudy green color. This one is slightly better than Holy Mountain’s and Upton Tea’s but only slightly. In fact, I’m not even sure it isn’t exactly the same. Clearly I need to do a Genmaicha taste test and comparison. But that will have to wait until after NaNoWriMo. Meanwhile, I’ll just say “Mmmmm! Genmaicha with matcha!”
How does it work for more than one infusion? I’d think the matcha would all go into the 1st cup?
I don’t typically do more than one infusion with most teas except the first or second time as a discovery method. The one time I tried a second steeping with genmaicha it was disappointing (for exactly the reason you mentioned). I haven’t tried it with this particular genmaicha.
You don’t??? That’s such a waste of tea and money! I’m on infusion 6 of a green and get 8-10 w/ some oolongs.
The problem is that I typically don’t drink more than a cup at a time and then I want a different tea or no tea at all. If I were staying put and drinking the same tea throughout the day I would re-steep, but since I don’t, it seems unsanitary to keep wet leaves more than a short time. How do you handle this?
As long as the tea leaves do not mold, you’re fine! I do happen to drink one tea til the leaves are dead, but if I do want a change I either just set them aside (I always use Adagio’s ingenuiTEA) and steep something else in a paper filter or you can dry the leaves on a paper towel on a plate (as long as the plate isn’t paper). Even leaves in a paper filter can be saved, just set them aside in a cup or on a saucer. They don’t have a real long shelf life, but will definitely last til the next day at least. There are several times where I have leaves that just refuse to die so I finish them in the morning.
Hmmm. Perhaps I’ll try putting them in the refrigerator then.
There is no need. DO NOT put them in the frig. Just leave them on the counter out of your way. Chilling them damages the flavor.
I live in buggy Memphis. In the period between winter and summer the outdoor bugs crawl under my door looking for warmth and food and we fight a constant battle with them that won’t be over until March or April. The ants activate in October and continue through January (and we fight a war against them). Part of our side of the war is that nothing that is not perfectly sealed and dry is ever left on a counter where it could validate the bugs’ perception that it is possible to find food here. (We have other more aggressive tactics as well, but it is pointless to carry out aggressive actions if one does not shore up one’s defensive lines.)
You must trust me when I say that bugs are different in the South. There is no real winter to kill them off and the constant moisture provides them with perfect nesting and breeding grounds.
I suspect that you are thinking to yourself that there are bugs in Wisconsin as well or that I must be a terrible housekeeper or that I must live in a slum. I used to think the same when I lived in Columbus, OH and Denver, CO. It was possible in those places to defeat the bugs. Here in Memphis even the best houses and the cleanest people must fight the bug battle. It is a way of life.
I would not dare use tea leaves I’d left out for an hour and didn’t watch over. It wouldn’t be sanitary. So if they can’t be refrigerated, I won’t be keeping them for a re-steep.
as long as they are cool (so steam doesn’t form) they can be in an air tight container.
Well, hmmm. So far I’ve tried 4 genmaichas: Numi’s bagged, loose tea from The Path of Tea, Genmaicha from David’s Tea, and this one.
I instantly loved Numi’s and continued to do so despite the bags. I instantly loved the first cup I made from The Path of Tea, but subsequent cups not so much. I did not instantly love either David’s Tea Genmaicha or Den’s Genmaicha Extra Green with Matcha.
I feel these extremely inconsistent results are mostly my fault. I haven’t achieved the correct temperature and steep time for any of the loose teas yet, and haven’t been able to reproduce the good experience I had with my first loose genmaicha. So I am not going to rate Den’s yet.
The instructions say to use boiling water, 1 tsp leaves, steep for 30 seconds. This is quite different from what David’s Tea recommends for their Genmaicha (165F and steep 2-3 minutes.)
I was interrupted by my boss so the water was probably more like 175-180, but I was careful re: the quantity and steep time. What I ended up with is not bitter, but it is a bit insipid and lacking in sweetness or toastiness. I’ll try for boiling water and a 15-second steep on my second cup, as recommended by Den’s.
Second steep: I also used less water. We may be getting there.
I’m not feeling so hot today. Kind of dizzy and feverish, kind of feel a cold coming on, kind of upset stomach. I’m at work and have to function at least well enough to answer phones.
So, I chose some of this to help. It is! It’s really helping settle my stomach and, I think, wake me up a little. It’s also going well with the stir fry I’m eating for dinner. I don’t often drink tea while I’m eating, but this is helping me get it down.
“I brewed it myyyyyyy waaaaaaaaaaay!” :) Good for you, Dan — make it however it tastes best!