Laoshan Black Genmaicha (Unofficial)

So happy, I went to get lunch with a friend I’ve not kept a very good job keeping in touch with since I moved to Atlanta. She had been in Israel but got sick and had to come back home for the time being. Lunch turned in to me being there till past 6! And we’re going to get together tomorrow too. I cannot get over how good it feels to have someone to hang out with since I have like one friend at home. I had planned to have an afternoon with a puerh but that didn’t work out and probably won’t tomorrow either but that’s ok :)

Thank you for sending me a sample of this, Ze_Teamaker! I was super psyched that you thought to ask me if I wanted some :D I just kept putting it off and putting it off, it wasn’t even going to be my first tea tonight but I found I brought it with me and knew I should have it now! (Ok, also because I finally got my Verdant $10 voucher and I want to make sure I like how this tastes before buying the official version.)

Like I really needed to “double-check” first. Of course this tastes amazing. I always get chocolate and cinnamon from Laoshan Black, so this is like having a brownie mixed with a rice krispies treat.

Even though this is pretty sweet as is, I thought it might be intriguing to add some sapin honey in here. It’s a darker honey with a pretty distinct smell, and it is kind of beyond awesome in this tea. It kind of amplifies the toasty rice and the maltiness of the laoshan black. Apparently me adding honey to my tea was very fascinating to Tucker as he is now laying on the couch next to me.

Second steep, I had to add the honey again, this time maybe a bit less. Still enjoyed the first one more, this one was just more malty, and I lost my cinnamony notes.

Loved trying this, definitely have to get the official one now!

Sipdown, 244.

This morning has started out poorly. Got a call from my credit card company about frauduent charges… apparently someone used my card number to try to refill their Starbucks card to the tune of $300. So that’s fun.

Also the campus is on a boil order because a water main broke nearby, and will be until the end of the day. Fortunately I already filter my water here for tea (it came out of the tap kind of… brown this morning), but I will also be making only black tea today, I guess.

As always in these situations, I want a tea to make me feel better. I also wanted a sipdown, so I figured I would try this one, which I got a sample of from Ze_Teamaker. Thanks so much for sending it along! This is a mistake tea where Verdant accidentally used Laoshan Black instead of Laoshan Green to make this genmaicha.

I have to say, I have never been too much of a fan of genmaicha (the green version), but this is amazingly delicious. Crisp, nutty toasty rice flavor goes so much better to me with a black base than a green. Oh so chocolatey, sweet and honeyed from the Laoshan Black, it’s like eating the most delicious chocolate museli with honey. Now I am nostalgic for my time in Greece, when I ate chocolate museli with greek yogurt and greek honey every morning for breakfast. Yum.

David, please make this blend available for purchase! It is so good!

On one of my last orders with Verdant Tea I got some of their Laoshan Genmaicha. When I got the order in I went to go make some to eat with my dinner. When I opened the bag I noticed something strange. The leaves seemed darker then normal, but I figured it just might be my eyes. However, when I finished brewing it I knew it wasn’t right. Instead of the green tea base it was Laoshan black. When I told them of the mix up they apologized and sent out the right batch. I have to say though, This is one tasty mix up.

Interestingly enough, when David emailed me back about it, he said that he thought about making this blend available at one point.

When I sat down to brew this again with different steeping time, I found that it had an awesome flavor. The taste and smell of it remind me of malted bread that has been toasted and buttered, then dusted with cocoa powder. The early steepings are more savory and malty, while the later steepings tasted more sweet, nutty, and chocolaty. It’s like I made two pieces of toast and put butter on one, and then put Nuttella on the other one. It is very hearty and filling,it’s like breakfast in a cup.

Overall it is a very tasty tea. I can see it being a great early morning breakfast brew. I wonder what this would taste like with a spot of almond milk in it.

Specifications

Leaf: A little over 2 tsps
Water: 8oz
Steep Time: 1 minuet; adding another minuet after each steeping.
Sweetener: just a pinch of light agave.

Ok, this is the weirdest thing…

Mr. LBG came to me as a surprise…name and instructions followed in a message (which I had forgotten about). Anyway, idk what possessed me to enter it in my catalog as a chai (this is the first time this has happened) and so I set out following the website instructions for Laoshan Village Chai! Boiled a tbsp w milk (smelled like it was burning) but tasted fine nevertheless. It was already somewhat sweet on its own but I wanted it sweeter and since I do put sugar in my chai, I added honey as recommended.
The taste of toasted rice was predominant and I thought it was weird to put rice in a chai..and then it dawned on me…checked the website, and yep, it’s a Genmaicha! lol.

So my second steep followed the directions ok..tho it was infused with some of the milk I boiled it with ^^’

Unfortunately, this mistake was not as “successful” as this tea’s origins. I taste the toasted rice but not much else :( Will update after the 3rd steep ^^’

Update: Yay, the milk washed off with the 2nd steep and now I’m getting lots of other notes with the toasted rice..hm, lemme see…the original sweetness I detected before the addition of honey, chocolate..some green-ness!…and something else I can’t place ^^

Many thanks to Ze Teamaker for sending me this surprise sample!

Update: I am still steeping it…I think it is the 5th or 6th…not complex as earlier steeps but still with the fun toasted rice flavor that I like!

Thank you to Ze_Teamaker for sharing this ‘windfall’ tea with me!

My flavor imagination was quivering with anticipation when Ze_Teamaker let me know this tea was on the way through the Postal System.

I’m a big fan of Laoshan Black…cocoa and bread, malt and light black pepper (sometimes). Genmaicha isn’t a tea I sit down and drink. I cook with genmaicha.
For whatever reason, a savory tea makes me hungry and I begin thinking up recipes…invariably ending up in the kitchen cooking (and eating).

When the tea arrived, I took it to share with Joe at the tea shop.

We drank a little over half the sample, enjoying the tea without talking much.

What I loved was the classic sweet Laoshan Black up front, no genmaicha flavor at all, and then at the back of my mouth…rice.
Smooth genmaicha rice with a very long finish pushed by the bread flavor of the Laoshan Black.

This was like drinking two tea’s, one sweeter and one savory. (A nice surprise)

I couldn’t help dreaming (as I do) about what I would create with the Genmaicha in my kitchen.

When I arrived at my home, I began to experiment.
I infused some rice wine vinegar with the Genmaicha, hoping to create an interesting flavor. The idea was good, but the vinegar needed to be lighter and I needed more tea to infuse more flavor.
(The sweet, cocoa malty Laoshan Black and Minnisota Rice would make a great infusion!)

Here’s hoping Verdant will release this blend! I’d like more!