Master Zhang's Genmaicha

Sipdown #48
Another one from Sil. It’s an interesting take on Genmaicha, although I do think I prefer it with green tea, & Even moreso without a doubt my favorite Genmaicha now is Laoshan Black! But this is nice too.

The first time I tasted this I was sick and all I could taste was cinnamon, which was by no means a bad thing. Now that my sinuses are (mostly) better, I am looking forward to trying this again!

Mmmmm mmmm mmmmmmm, I really like this tea! Lots of coriander and cinnamon flavor. I honestly don’t taste much toasted rice but I don’t care. The delicate oolong taste barely manages to come through the spices, at least on the first few sips. Once again, I’m okay with that…I have really been craving a good cinnamon tea and this really hit the spot. Sometimes I think chai blends have too much in them but never enough cinnamon..so even though this is not a chai, this really fills that craving!
As it cools I can taste more of the oolong, and it’s delicious. This is a tea I would be willing to keep around, especially in the winter months! I have to agree with another reviewer..this tea tastes like Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Just better. Lol!

The third tea, this time from *Dinosara*’s collection, at our knitting/tea drinking extravaganza yesterday. This was a fun tea.
First steep, 30 seconds: ginger snaps in a mug! Cinnamon scent and cookie flavor!
Second steep, 45 seconds: more sugary, I can feel the presence of the oolong now and smell it in my aroma cup, but the flavor is still very cinnamony.
Third steep, 1:10: more floral, less sugar, cinnamon ever present.
Fourth (stopped keeping time here in my notes): pure brown sugar cookie in my cup! Really cozy tea!
Fifth: same as above, but the flavor was fading and it felt thinner.
Overall I think I would love this tea around the holidays!

Queued post, written June 25th 2014

Turns out we’ve actually got a reasonably good local clothes shop with women’s fashion. And it’s the sort of shop that carries clothes that matches my age group and taste fairly well. As in normal clothes without too many wild details, mysterious patterns or eye-bleeding colours on it and at a reasonable price. I needed to replenish my closet in the t-shirt department after I had a good thorough clean out earlier this month. Took a whole big sack of clothes to the charity shop, most of which were things that I never really wore anyway. So I didn’t actually lose very much that I was sometimes using. It just illustrated to me quite plainly how little I actually had to use. Most of what I threw out that I was actually using sometimes were things that I had worn holes in here and there.

So it was time for new things. This particular shop is right next to our grocery shop, so I’ve walked past it loads of times, but never been inside. Rather than bother with a train trip to the city and back, I thought I’d look there first. My luck was in, they were having a sale. Came home with five short sleeved t-shirts, one long sleeved top and one nice cardigan, and they even had a sale so I paid half price or less on half of them. Ha! This is definitely worth knowing!

On my way home in even started raining. Really great big drops of rain. This + succesful shopping = celebratory me, because the lawn is a bit yellow and the rainwater barrel is empty.

I remembered I had a genmaicha that MissB shared with me in the yet to try box and I thought something toasty and green sounded just like a good celebration beverage. So I took it and made a cup. By the time I discovered what it actually was, it was too late to change my mind.

This is not what I understand by genmaicha at all. It’s not a green tea, but an oolong. It has no puffed rice, but toasted rice. It has chai spices in it.

This is an oolong chai with toasted rice. The inclusion of some sort of rice doesn’t automatically make something a genmaicha in my book.

Hm.

Oh well. I will try to keep an open mind.

I can easily detect the carob and cinnamon in the aroma, and there is a toasted note as well, which I believe must be the rice. Underneath all that, and perhaps enhanced by it as well, I can smell the oolong base. Floral and a bit woody. Thankfully I can’t smell the coriander. I find coriander is far too sharp and strong a flavour for me in raw form. Husband grows it in the window sill for cooking use, and it stinks whenever he’s trimmed flower stalks and withered leaves off it.

The flavour is very cinnamon-y and sweet. I think it’s the carob in combination with the cinnamon that is making it sweet. I can taste the base tea when swallowing, but there is so much of the cinnamon and carob that I can only really tell that it’s there. I couldn’t say much about it. There might be a faint hint of coriander in the aftertaste, but it’s not so much that I’m certain I’m not imagining it there because I know it’s in here. There is an overall faint hint of toasted rice, but again it’s not very much.

It’s quite a pleasant tea, if a bit heavy on the spices. Not a genmaicha, though.

Actually drinking this one, and I’m not even going to try to be coherent. (Going to spend that energy on my overdue paper instead. Theoretically. Anyway.) I do really like this one, but we’ll see how I feel at the end of the ounce. I do think I need to try the base tea, though? Because I think I liked it in that other blend… Yeah…

This is great. I hot steeped it and am enjoying it warm. I love the mix of spices here. On some sips I can strongly taste the wonderful green oolong with its slightly tangy edge. On other sips the savory sensation of toasted rice and coriander is dominant. The cinnamon is barely present, but I seem to be less sensitive to cinnamon than others. I could easily drink large quantities of this, but I only have a small amount so I’ll enjoy it one cup at a time.