Leaf Type: Green
Produced for the Kyoto Obubu Tea Plantations
For More Information, visit the Tea Farms webpage
About ITFA Global Tea Tasters Club:
By subscribing to the Global Tea Tasters Club, you will receive tea from ITFA tea farms 6 times per year. Each time, we will select a different region to feature and as we grow in tea farm members, so will your tea experience.
Your tea will also be accompanied by info about the tea and the tea farms themselves.
To know where your tea is coming from, who has grown and produced it, to taste the difference in teas from around the world…what could be better?
Taster’s Review:
Editor’s Note: I know it is usually spelled “Genmaicha” or “Genmai Cha,” however, the label on the package says Gemmai Cha.
Genmaicha stands out as my first really positive green tea experience. Way back (about 15 years now! yikes!) when I first started drinking tea “seriously” (err… that is, buying and drinking loose leaf tea), I had decided (rather prematurely) that I wasn’t crazy for green tea. Most of what I had tried was bitter. I have since realized that it was my fault because I had not yet learned the proper way to brew green tea. It was about the time that I started learning more about brewing temperatures and steeping time that I tried Genmaicha, and I really enjoyed it.
So I am always happy to receive Genmaicha, and was thrilled to find a package of Genmaicha along with the other teas that I received as part of August’s Shipment for the Global Tea Taster’s Club.
About this Genmaicha:
Obubu’s Genmaicha, or brown rice tea, is made with new leaves harvested in the summer. Instead of regular rice, Obubu uses sweet rice grown locally in the valley of Wazuka, creating a tea with a strong, sweet, toasty flavor and an aroma that fills the room.
While I am enjoying this Genmaicha immensely, I do disagree with the above quote regarding this tea. This has to be one of the lighter Genmaicha teas that I’ve ever tasted. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It is sweet and toasty, and it is very aromatic, but, it doesn’t have the strong flavor that I usually experience with a Genmaicha.
Yes, I do appreciate the strong flavor of a typical Genmaicha, but, I am finding the lightness of this Genmaicha to be very refreshing, and I’m liking it a lot. The green tea tastes fresh and exhilarating. It has a crispness to it, and a moderate amount of cleansing astringency.
The sweet brown rice adds that cozy, comforting toasty flavor, but it doesn’t taste overly roasty-toasty. It is the brown rice flavor where the lightness is especially noticeable. The brown rice isn’t overpowering the flavor of the green tea, which I think is often the case with Genmaicha. With this Genmaicha (Gemmai Cha?) it is the green tea that is celebrated, and not the toasty rice.
A very unexpected yet delicious Genmaicha!
