Published 2025-04-27
tag(s): #reviews #infusions
"Experiences" sounds pretentious, but saying "reviews" is even worse, I have zero
qualifications to review anything. 🤣
Future similar posts will be titled mmmmmmm "tea happenings", maybe?
A few days ago we visited the Edgewater area of NJ, and found an Asian market not unlike the
one closer to our house. But fancier. I got three teas there.
I also got a new green tea mixed with spices, that my wife got with a larger "argentinian
stuff" order she made (mostly yerba, for our matecitos).
I have a lot of tea to go through, and I am trying to open them one by one, with the intent to
keep them fresh while they are in the shelf.
So far I only tried one of the green teas I got at the market, it is called "Genmai-cha": a mix of green tea and roasted rice. Right as I was looking for a picture for this post I found some info about it in Wikipedia, it seems to be common. The particular one I got is this one:
I expected it to taste better than just green tea. And it does, but mostly because I cannot
taste the tea - it's just the roasted rice overpowering any other flavor. Is this brand badly
balanced, and it has too much rice in the mix? Did I prepare it wrong? Do I just not like
it?
Time will tell. For starters, I used the lower water temperatures recommended for green tea,
but the bag suggests a temp range going up to boiling. Which I understand is bad for green
tea, in my experience[1] it won't taste good when water is that hot. But,
this is a different blend I guess.
Speaking of blends, I am regularly drinking the
"very plain black tea" I mentioned
before. But I add to the mix like, a quarter spoon[2] of the green tea
from that same post. I prepare it with boiling water, and it certainly improves both teas.
First, it doesn't matter that the green tea is more bitter (or is it burned?) as it is just a
small quantity - not enough to overpower the rest of the flavors. And the black tea, bland it
is, is a good base for the green tea flavor to sort of "push through" it.
The green tea is noticeable in the mix's aftertaste: the aroma in the cup is pretty much all
black tea. But in your mouth, and the exhale after a sip, the green tea is definitely there.
I am happy about this mix, although I am not sure a tea purist would think it is a good idea or an aberration. In any case, this is enticing me to finish those two teas, they would otherwise go to waste.