Sampler Sipdown September! I sipped down another older tea today at work… and my perfectly fine kettle from home had that same weird “burnt rubber/metallic” water taste when I took it to work! I’m beside myself now. I’m convinced the power outlet at work has done something to the heating element in my kettles, and now I’ve just given up on making tea at work at all. I’ll have to brew at home and take it in a thermos (and iced tea in water bottles like I’ve been doing over the summer) because I just can’t take it. I really hope the element isn’t fried. Now I have two kettles packed into storage, and my new Bonavita has just arrived…
I don’t particularly feel bad about the upgrade though. Nice to finally have a kettle at home that I can precision input temperatures into when the need arises. Plus, I can get really low temperatures on it, which is handy for gyokuro.
Anyway, this is a single-serve teabag from a sampler pack I bought from Lupicia during a Mottainai sale. I’m really shocked that green tea that was technically from a Christmas sampler, which I purchased last April, tastes really fresh. The tea has a very savory aroma that reminds me a bit of baked beans and roasted nuts. The base of the tea has a very clean, fresh green taste, and it has a nice, nutty, genmaicha flavor, but there is something unique about this version of genmaicha that is a bit hard for me to describe. Something about the overall flavor reminds me a bit of Chinese green teas, as there is this “savory bean/green bean” sort of flavor that mixes pleasantly with crisp, roasty nuttiness from the rice. Personally, I really am enjoying this variation on genmaicha! Genmaicha is one of my favorite teas, and the black beans seem to create this fusion of Chinese and Japanese flavor profiles for me… and since I love both Japanese and Chinese greens, I’m all for that. This is certainly a tea I wouldn’t mind restocking sometime!
Flavors: Beany, Grass, Green Beans, Roasted Nuts, Umami
New kettle, heck yeah. The tea sounds good, too.