Mango Sticky Rice Genmaicha

Mastress Alita’s Monthly Sipdown Challenge
December 2022 → A genmaicha

Still working through my December sipdown prompts, and this one is an actual sipdown! I’m not normally a fan of savory teas, and genmaicha falls into that category for me (even though I’ve tried a few with sweet additives). I always love the aroma, but green teas are a hard sell for me taste-wise anyway. I do love mango sticky rice though, so seeing this flavor made me think this might be something I’d enjoy. Plus it smells fantastic!

I steeped the tea hot and fast, then added some brown sugar and coconut milk to try to match some of the flavors. It’s delicious! I can still taste and smell the roastiness of the rice, plus the sweet coconut makes this feel like a dessert for breakfast. I may have to try some variation of this with the other genmaicha blends in my cupboard. I think I have at least one floating around in there.

I can’t do anything without some sort of recipe, so here’s the one I used – http://www.thirstyfortea.com/recipes/genmaicha-lattes/.

12 Teas of Christmas: Day 8

I fell hard into the late afternoon slump and went to my advent corner to find something appealing. Once I scratched off the label for today’s surprise from the 52Teas box, I knew it was exactly what I wanted!

This is a beautiful tea that smells really delightful, and I love the flavor inspiration. Brewed up, I’m getting mostly toasty notes from the rice, layered atop a gentle grassiness. The fresh mango flavor is subtle and only comes through on the back of the sip. The coconut only comes through as it cools; the mango is also more noticeable at that point — it reminds me of a slightly unripe mango with a bit of astringency. I think I want a littttle more body to it, but it’s still quite pleasant.

Sipdown! thanks again Variatea for sharing enjoyed drinking this one over the past few weeks. Hilariously i’m glad i was able to finish it up before we hit christmas THIS year

Todd and I had this tea with our dinner yesterday. I got out my fancy hand-painted Japanese teaware that has a pattern of a sunset over trees and a shoreline, with a lazy swan gliding in the water. The cups were gifted to me from a coworker, and I was so happy I found the matching teapot on EBay!

I really like this one! Yesterday I only steeped for 2 minutes and found I got less of the traditional genmaicha flavor, and more of a lightly sweet mango and coconut flavor. I pushed the steep for my cup tonight to 3 minutes, and now I’m tasting the toasty flavor of the roasted rice as the most dominant note, with a sweet grassiness in the background, a subtle mango that comes forward late in the sip against the top and back of my mouth, and just a bit of a creamy/silky element to the mouthfeel from the coconut. Both were enjoyable cups, but I think I like it with the slightly longer steep since I like the strong genmai note.

April 2021 Reblend Tea

I missed this one the first time around and my life was likely less fulfilled because of it. Why? Because this is a mango tea I finally enjoy. Maybe it’s the coconut compliment (an ingredient I no longer love as much as I used to). Maybe it’s that this tea attempts to imitate mango flavoured rice instead of an actual fresh, juicy mango – an object that is so full of delight, wonder, and magic sparkles that nothing can hope to compare to it (only my love of birbs tops my love of the great mango). I don’t know, except that I like it quite a bit and came on here after a long hiatus because of it.

So not bad, I guess.

Steep Count: 3 (2min, 3min, 6min)

Sipdown!

I enjoyed this one, even though I’m not a coconut lover. It has a nice realistic coconut flavor that goes well with the genmaicha. It really does remind me of coconut sticky rice, which is amazing. The grassiness of the green tea detracts a bit, but the short steep helps curb that.

I think I got a bit more mango in this last cup as well, maybe I had more mango cubes? Either way, it does conjure up the thought of sweet coconut-infused rice with a few mango slices perched on top.

Hot, I couldn’t taste any mango at all. When it cooled off, I did notice some fruitiness that went well with the toasty genmaicha flavor, though I would have liked even more mango. I could picture this flavor as mango sticky rice. I’m enjoying it more as I’m considering the flavors. A ton of coconut went into this cup, but I don’t taste any. That’s okay with me though! The second steep tasted similar to the first.

I absolutely love mango teas, and I absolutely love genmaichas, so I was very excited to try this. I got loads of coconut flavor, and the distinct popped rice, but not mango to my palate.

Sipdown and time to write about it. :)

Toasted rice, good genmaicha, the aroma of coconuts and mango… The taste is very natural, nothing artificial. The mango flavor is a little light for me but you can taste it in the finish. Toasted rice is the main note, and it’s a very creamy feeling tea.

52Teas has made me rethink coconut teas. I love fresh coconut but hate artificial tasting coconut so other than eating coconut straight, I generally stay away from any coconut flavored foods, drinks.. Etc. In their teas though, both the aroma and taste of the coconut is really good.

This is our Featured Reblend for February – and unfortunately (due to having less Genmaicha in stock than I realized) there isn’t a whole lot of it left after fulfilling subscriptions.

This tastes so much like I remember it – nice toasty rice flavor from the genmaicha – a sweet, custardy note, a touch of mango (that hits toward the finish and lingers) and toasted coconut. Sweet, yummy, creamy deliciousness. A nice representation, I think, of my favorite Thai dessert.