Featuring Chicago Tea Garden’s Bi Luo!

…Enjoy!

BLAHHHHH

Not sure if you want to call this “episode 31″ or “episode 32″ but either way, it’s something to watch

Like I said, I really wanted to like this tea, but I just cannot find myself getting into it. I expected to taste green tea, but all I got was HEY HERE’S SOME MINT, TRY IT. And it wasn’t even like “oh it’s minty, but it’s pretty good,” more like this came from my grandpa’s candy dish from the Post-WWII era. In essence, this tastes like a STRONG mint leaf with a mix of random other small flavors, like it’s been sitting in the dish w/ other minty stuff (remember those little white chalky mints?) and red hot fireballs. Bad combo.

Just doesn’t CUT IT for me.

Check this out on Steepster:

DISCLAIMER:  I added a half a teaspoon of ITO EN Matcha with this Genmaicha tea, to see what it tasted like.  The results may frighten you.  Okay not really, but maybe.

To start off, I just wanted to say that this was not my idea alone.  My good buddy @paintedleaves put this on her blog and I decided to try it.  After a bit of WikiResearch (note: I coined that phrase), I found that this is sometimes sold as a package (Genmaicha and Matcha) and it is known as Matcha-iri genmaicha.  Lackluster title.  I prefer to call it Genmaimatcha or Genmaitcha.  But what do I know about Japanese?  Anyway.

Genmaicha for those of you unaware, is a blend of popped rice, green tea leaves and occasionally popped corn (in this case, Adagio’s HAS popped corn in it, need to try some without it).

COLOR
The color of normal Genmaicha is a surprisingly light green from my experience.  It’s very clear and it tastes like grass that has been slathered with butter and roasted (even sauted) over a skillet.  It’s almost overwhelming when you first try it, and the variety of green tea associated with is almost FIERCE.

Now, mix this combination with ITO EN’s premium Matcha and you get a hell of a combo!  Flavor pops out the wazoo, not to mention it looks like something you would find in a swamp or sewer.  So basically you’ve got your tea that looks like something out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and “Gak.”  But smells absolutely enticing.

Now onto FLAVOR

This is a strange combination.  Though I tasted the typical genmaicha flavor, it was overridden (overrided?  whatever.) by a blast of the pure strength of the Matcha powder.  It was like I put more powder in than genmaicha.  It had this really smooth and silky texture to it, almost like chocolate with a mix of tannin.  It also tasted like if you had sand in your mouth, or if you were ever a kid and tasted a rock by accident (hey, what the hell, kids are weird, I know I was)!  It was bland, yet it had that KICK to it, given mostly by the genmaicha’s popped rice and unique flavor.  It also tasted like vegetals that you would find around the beach.  The smell of that driftwood and seaweed, THAT’S what it tasted like.  It’s so seaweedy, like you accidentally got a gulp of Lake Erie’s water.  All in all, INCREDIBLY potent.

Via My Steepster:

So, this tea was a strange one. The leaves and the actual tea itself smelled and tasted COMPLETELY different. Now my palate might be “off” but this tea really smelled like lime and green pepper, but tasted like a rubber hose (literally) as well as STRONG flavors of mozzarella cheese! It reminded me of string cheese, the kind that we used to get at my house on certain occasions. SO Strange. I don’t know if I would drink it again for taste, rather I would drink it to find more flavors in it! Crazy for a Darjeeling Green!

See it on:

iTunes Viddler Vimeo

Via Steepster:

Very, very interesting tea taste. I mixed the water and powder (which I thought was matcha, but turned out to be brown Hojicha…gotta read the label).

So after mixing and whisking this Hojicha, I let it cool for a second and sipped it. Of course I believe that in the first sip or so is where you notice the most flavor. Here’s what I tasted:

• Coffee. Since Hojicha is roasted in a ceramic pot over charcoal, it was no surprise that the powder was NOT bright green, but a light brown (almost looked like sawdust).
• Chocolatey Sweetness. Now notice I didn’t say chocolate outright. I thought about it, but the fact that it didn’t taste like the cocoa bean, but rather the sweet taste of it in GENERAL was what I noticed.
• Flavorful note aftertaste. I’m not sure how to explain this, but the aftertaste of this stuck on my tongue, probably due to its powderyness. Anyway, there was an almost sticky-sweet aftertaste, like a donut taste or something. I don’t know, a bit tough to explain really. Verry pleasing though.

Special shout out to all the ladies at PoshMama!