Ujinotsuyu

I drank the last of my Genmaicha today and will have to buy some more. This tea reminds me so much of the first time I ate sushi with my dad in a little sushi place in bridgeland that had beautiful wood fired mugs that I am reminded of that time every time I drink it.

This tea has grown on me from the first sip on. It’s real green and lightly murky. Very strong smelling. Thick on the tongue. It is one of the more grassy teas I have tasted. One of the best loose teas I have bought from an Asian grocery store, of course that’s not saying much. The shop Mitsuwa near Chicago seems to have a good turn around on their tea, always featuring a new brand. Of all the Asian groceries, I think this would be the only place I would buy tea.

Anyways, it’s a good blend. Not my favorite genmaicha…but I’ll go through the bag no problem.

As promised, more Iyemon tea! This time in the form of genmaicha. I’ve seen genmaicha referred to as popcorny, and this stuff is indeed quite popcorny, both in the taste and in the aftertaste. It’s also slightly sweet, at least initially, which I found interesting, although the sweetness went away as it warmed up. Eventually the sweetness fades to a bitter finish that, combined with the popcorn taste makes for a rather odd aftertaste that I can’t really say I’m overly fond of.

The taste of the underlying tea is kind of similar to the oolong I had earlier this week. Kind of woodsy, skirting along the edges of bitterness/smokiness without never quite making it over the threshold. There is, however, no traces of the matcha that was supposedly iri’d at some point in the creation of this tea. This is not one of my favorites.

Oh yeah, this is powerful stuff. I forgot! Definitely feeling wide awake now!! Whee!

Boy, the sweetness in the aftertaste is great.

This is powerful stuff. As best I could I brewed it as per the directions – I don’t know any Japanese but from looking at the little pictograms and comparing them with pictograms on other packets that also had some English text, I deduced that I should be brewing about a tablespoon of leaf in 50ml of water at 60C, for about 2 minutes. I don’t have any teapots that small… An excuse to buy one perhaps..? … Anyway, so I brewed 2 tbls in 100ml water in a small drinking glass, figuring that it would be okay at the low temperature specified.

Result was about 75ml of the most radioactive looking tea you ever saw… Godzilla drinks this stuff, I’m positive. It’s a cloudy, lurid green. As for the taste, it’s strong and bitter at first, really quite a slap in the face; swallow and you’re rewarded with the most astonishing sweetness in the aftertaste. Quite addictive. Don’t drink it on an empty stomach though; it’s much too strong without something to buffer it.

Yummy! I’ll have to test out different proportions of leaf and water, and different steep times to get it just right. Very rice-y.

it is quite a full-bodied green tea. great for those long afternoons that seem to drag on.

It always happens this way, here. We get a day where the humidity is like sludge and then the next day we get a huge storm. Storms are predicted for tomorrow, so hopefully today’s sludge moves on. Meanwhile, light, bright teas keep me sane, and chugging my genmaicha is cheaper than burning through all 100g of Pai Mu Tan in 24 hours.

I’ve been reading this crazy serious tea blog, recently, and I noticed that the author doesn’t steep in pots, he steeps in wide, open bowls. Well, I don’t have hand made, local clay, wire fire glazed tea bowls. But I do have huge, wide, Pyrex™ measuring “cups” that are at least very open and heat resistant. So I have been trying to make tea in those and see how that goes. If nothing else, the clean up is much easier than a tea pot ;-) I have, in the past, used my spherical Bodum™, with the plunger arrangement removed, for this purpose, but the glass is so thin I find there’s a lot of heat lost even in just a couple minutes, and if I’m doing a 15 minute pu-erh steeping, the water can be down to drinking temperature by the time the steep is done. The Pyrex™ is much heavier and should hold the heat better.

It could be completely psychosomatic, but this genmaicha seems to have “woken up” substantially from this steeping approach. I can taste a lot more of the deep green of the tea underneath the very strong roast of the rice which I have mentioned in the past that this variety has. Usually the roast completely overpowers the actual tea, but right now I think I can taste both about equally.

I have also done two steepings of the decaf Darjeeling from TG with this method and the results seemed much bolder, as well.

This is perfect for today as spring begins to explode all over Houston.

I have a habit. To say a rule would be too strong, because I don’t always abide, but a habit is about right. When purchasing any kind of flavored tea (which, for me, amounts to earl gray, genmaicha and spiced chai), I don’t bother to buy really expensive, fine tea as I would for, say, a shade-grown green or a pai mu tan white. The whole process of flavoring and scenting teas was developed to help make less desirable leaf more desirable. So why spend more on leaf that would be just fine by itself, only to mask its natural notes with flavoring? So this is a genmaicha that I buy at Asian groceries and super markets. Big, green foil bag. And for me, for genmaicha, that’s about as classy as I get.

This particular genmaicha is very nutty compared to some others which are mostly green with a hint of roast. The rice is all brown, no popped white kernels at all, and the leaf is very bright, but dark green (neither pale, nor muddy). The tea itself is grassy enough to hold up to the roast from the rice, and the resulting cup is quite bold but not bitter, burnt or kelpy. I usually only drink teas like this in the summer because it is so bright and open, but our weather today has the promise of spring all over it and I just couldn’t bring myself to make pu-erh or oolong today.

I feel bad giving this a 3/4’s rating, but I just can’t bring myself to rate a flavored tea anywhere above that point, knowing that all the fine, delicate teas I’ll be drinking will certainly be up in that range. As good as this tea is, for what it is, it does not belong in that company.

Fantastic smooth genmaicha, it also lasts a long time without getting too bitter…a good choice if you don’t want to drink all your tea right away.

Back at the same sushi place, Arigato Sushi, for supper with the boyfriend. On a cold day like this where I can feel winter closing in, it’s nice to have a hot drink with my meal. Once again I think this tea goes remarkably well with sushi (although it was tuna donburi this time), however the boyfriend took one sip, wrinkled his nose and asked if he could add sugar. Oy vey! rolls eyes

I drank this at a sushi place and really enjoyed it. It’s more of less my first experience with genmaicha, and even though this is a pretty basic grocery store brand (I asked the server) I’m quite impressed.

The roasted grain flavour is distinct but at the same time it doesn’t overpower the food it’s paired with. If anything it enhanced the taste of the sushi.

This is one of my favorite teas. I can always rely on Genmaicha to taste great and smooth. I love the warm rice taste to it.

I drink this daily… It has a nice robust flavor and is smooth.

Usually drink this in a stainless steel tea mug, and steep at least 2-3 times before changing the leaves.