Genmaicha
Today's tea is Genmaicha , one of my special occasions tea. The occasion that has me drinking it today is I'm out of milk and I don't feel like Earl Grey :-) Genmaicha is a green tea with toasted brown rice. Some of the rice is "popped" looking like popcorn. The toasted rice supplies a sweetness to the tea making sugar unnecessary. This tea was from the company " The Tao of Tea " and was sourced from Amazon . It costs about $3.43 an ounce, which is a bit pricey, but the fact that it can be steeped 2 or 3 times reduces it's effective cost by a factor of 2 or 3. I made this tea in the Assam tea press and used the 185 degree water and a 4 minute steep time. Because it's a green tea, my normal pattern of taste testing is being changed, as the major difference in the test is which steeping of the tea is being tested. 1st stepping: Like most orthodox green teas genmaicha is fairly subtle. It has a a nice smell when in the cup, smelling of toast...