Malted Genmaicha

Tried this one again at a lower steeping temperature. Was a little better, but husband still refused to drink it as it didn’t help the smell. I did manage to drink about 1/4 a mug of this before I decided to throw in the towel. I always tell my kids “you have to try it before you say you don’t like it”. Well, I did. I don’t like it. Even a little. Suppose they can’t all be winners, eh?

Hrm.

I gave this a while between samplings, because I wasn’t sure I really had my mind made up. But I do. I’m just not that fond of this. It’s a really interesting experiment, of the sort that makes 52teas such a fascinating company, but it’s just not my cuppa. I think it’s got too much malt in it for my tastes. I do like genmaicha, but apparently I prefer mine straight up.

LOVE the smell upon opening the bag. I could just sit here all afternoon with my nose in the leaves. Sweety and creamy smelling, with a touch of greenness. On pouring the hot water over it, it goes back to smelling like any regular genmaicha, and then returns to its sweet malty scent when the leaves are removed.

Oh my, this is delicious. I might have difficulties sharing this one. I’ve always found genmaicha to be a soothing tea, and this one is no different. It almost feels /more/ caring because of the slightly desserty flavour. The toasted rice flavour is toned down quite a bit, and the green tea doesn’t leave me with that flavour that makes me dislike so many of them. This is pure delicious. This tea makes me happy!

This isn’t the only tea I’ve had since this morning, just the only one I had anything to say about. The others were all from teabags, consumed on the way to or at work, in various stages of sipdown. The good news is, I have several sipdowns of my starter teas coming up in the next few days. Yay!

I had this for the first time last night but it wasn’t under the best conditions. I intended to take it with me in the car on the way to meet another family for dinner out, but the BF was in a mood and eager to get going and was unwilling to wait the 1:30 it would have taken to steep this. Sigh. So it sat in the Breville until we returned and was room temperature, which this time of year is more like cold. I drank it cold, and it wasn’t bad that way, but I suspected it would be better hot.

So I’m trying again tonight. I really like genmaicha, and even without enhancements it gives me a bit of a malty grainy impression sometimes. This is like that natural maltiness dialed up to 11. I can smell toasty rice in the aroma of the steeped tea and barely any malt, but the flavor is as though someone has taken the insides out of malted milk balls, smashed them up and sprinkled the resulting powder into genmaicha.

There’s also an interesting milk note. I noticed a lot of discussion about the symbolism of the glass of milk on the label, and my own contribution is that perhaps it is referring to this milk note and not so much the idea of malted milk.

The tea liquor is a clear, light yellow.

I give it high marks for living up to its name. I suspect, though I don’t know for sure, that unlike a couple of the other elderly 52 teas packages I’ve cracked open lately this one won’t turn on me. It has a different aspect to it altogether that isn’t causing me vertigo from drinking tea that tastes like a completely different non-drinkable food. Yay!

This isn’t bad but I prefer a plain genmaicha, The malt kind of overpowers the roasted rice flavor.