Tea...reviews? experiences?

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:

A bag of genmai-cha, green tea with roasted rice.
(direct link to image)

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.

Footnotes
  1. From way back, before I knew other teas aren't made with boiling water. Like you know, month and a half ago =P
  2. I am using a 1 cup = 15 ml spoon to measure the amount of tea I use, but without getting too precise or obsessive as I was supposed to do with coffee.

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