No. 1912 Rose City Genmaicha

I know I was a little bit less than enthused about this tea the last time I had it, but I think something must have subconsciously resonated with me because I have not been able to get it out of my head. I ended up making another mug of it while working from home yesterday and it really resonated with me. Gently toasty with a light and almost citrusy freshness to accompany a very aromatic, delicate rose note. I was just really impressed, and the bergamot didn’t bother me at all this time around.

Tea Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cz4fs9mOA2Y/?img_index=2 (2nd Pic)

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAQNnd7QIkk

A gift from a friend visiting from PDX.

Filtered/boiled water allowed to cool. Infused for ~3.5 minutes at 179F. Followed up with a couple more infusions closer to 200F for 20 – 40 seconds.
Verona green/citrine/honeydew gradient.

Sachet was perfume-like with bergamot and rose up front. Nutty pan-fried Mao Feng, faint toasted rice, and mellow grassy sencha appear when the tea is brewed.

On the palate, the green tea takes center stage – mild, sweet, nutty/toasty flavors give way to the floral/herbal/citrus notes. Very faint umami at the edges in the finish, but the grassiness of the sencha and the vanilla/floral/citrus notes from the bergamot are present long into the aftertaste. Vague hints of aspirin and elderflower perhaps.

Light bodied, low tannins.

Flavors are alternately competitive and complimentary – a delicate but creative blend.

I’ve been trying to find a place to get a single sachet of this company’s jasmine tea to give to a friend. I remembered them mentioning this coffee shop they loved that I’d never heard of. I figured it was worth a try to look up what tea they carry and what do you know? They serve just what I was looking for. Not only that but they had this tea!! This one has been on my to try list for quite a while. I’ve been to many places that serve Steven Smith tea but they never served this one.

This one isn’t bad it’s got a lot going on and is an interesting combination of flavors and ingredients. There’s a strong taste of roasted rice but alongside that is a slightly citrusy bergamot flavor and a hint of rose. I’m not sure how I feel about the bergamot, rose, and toasted rice all in one tea though. I like that this blend is a Portland-inspired one in name as well.
I don’t think I’d need to purchase this one since the bergamot rice combo isn’t one I’d often reach for vs. a classic genmaicha. I need to try this one again steeped at a lower temperature as they used boiling water. Perhaps it would be a bit more balanced steeped at a lower temp. Next time I’d take the sachet home.

I’m sure everyone else who reviews this tea would agree and has in previous posts, that this is a unique blend. I’ve seen genmaicha mixes. I’ve seen bergamot mixes. But never have I seen a bergamot/genmai mixed together. It is calming and smells nice. It has a bit of umami mixed with roasted notes and a bergamot citrus finish. It is good but I’m not overwhelmed with the goodness.

Samurai TTB #61

This was the final teabag that I had pulled from the TTB a couple of weeks ago and has been waiting for me in my desk drawer at work. Although the quality of this seems really nice for a bagged tea, the flavor combination just isn’t working for me. The base tea is quite grassy and aggressive and seems to almost be fighting the toasted rice and floral flavors that are also present in the blend. I also find that it’s drying out my throat at the end of each sip. While I’m curious to try more from this brand, this isn’t one I’ll be returning to.

This tea is SO GOOD. The toastiness of the genmaicha is nicely balanced with the rose and mild bergamot. The sencha itself is impressive for a bagged tea- beautiful bright green leaves, with a nice smooth flavor. Overall, very impressed!

This is the last of the Steven Smith Teamaker teas that Todd brought to share with me when we met up at Anime Oasis. I had one of the teabags in the hotel while enjoying a My Little Pony bingewatch of the most recent season (yes, two grown adults, one nearing 40 and the other nearing 50, enjoying some MLP while drinking tea!) While all the teas he brought that I hadn’t sampled yet were great, I think this one was by far my favorite. I brought the second teabag home and am having it tonight.

It produces a nice yellow color with the most wonderful aroma; it’s like a dessert somehow, with that toasted nutty smell from the genmai mixed with the sweet floral rose. The flavor is also really wonderful, if you like floral teas (which I do!); the base is sencha mixed with Mao Feng, so it has more of a beany, vegetal quality which pairs nicely with the roasted nut notes from the genmai. There is also a subtle hint of bergamot in this blend, not enough to be overbearing on the flavor, but just enough to give the base a bit of a citrusy note, which also compliments the vegetal flavor nicely. The citrus notes also pair great with the floral rose sweetness that comes in midsip and pops on the roof of the mouth and lingers slightly in the aftertaste; it is not an especially strong rose taste, and doesn’t taste like they’ve added a bunch of rose oil or tried to make the tea an especially strong rose tea, but the florality is noticable in the aroma and flavor and blends really well with the other flavor notes in the cup. The genmai adds that nice roasted flavor that I find really settling and relaxing on my stomach, and somehow the rose just adds to that soothing, relaxing sensation.

This is one of Steven Smith Teamaker’s real winning blends, in my opinion. I will absolutely pick some of this up when I visit Portland this summer!

Four years after I first tried this hot, I finally tried it as a cold brew. I want to drink only this for a week, LOL. I imagine this would be great sitting in a garden in Portland, Oregon, with a bright white Oregon sky. Or, instead of a garden, in the parking lot of the abandoned Fry’s Electronics building in Wisonville, Oregon.

The flavor really pops with a cold brew, about as well as hot-brewed. The vegetal/grassy toasty green tea balances nicely with the rose flavor.

this is my favourite non-52 teas flavoured genmaicha. I’m saying this and I just read that this actually has bergamot oil in it, so if I have a headache later this is why. but I don’t recall getting headaches from this? /shrugs/ we’ll see.

this really is wonderful though, the rose/toasted rice-ness. yesss.

Absolutely love this tea. One of my personal favorites.
I’m a fan of genmaicha in general and this Steven Smith blend has done a wonderful job in pulling together the toasted rice and grassy notes of a traditional genmaicha with a sweet floral rose. The rose permeates both the flavor and aroma in a most pleasant way. Subtle notes of toasted rice and sweet grass reveal themselves on the backend of each sip.