Genmaicha translates to “whole grain rice tea,” though in reality, it’s a blend of polished (not whole grain), cooked, and then baked or toasted rice paired with tea.

Regarding the rice:
The puffed brown rice might give the impression of being whole grain, but it’s actually softened and toasted to enhance the flavor. While it may not be necessary to cook the rice before toasting, I’ve found that doing so releases more flavor and results in a consistently puffy appearance, similar to what you’d find in store-bought genmaicha. But I digress.

As for the tea component:
Genmaicha typically uses bancha, a tea made from mature leaves. However, this particular blend uses ichibancha, an early-picked sencha, which is as fresh as it gets. Younger leaves bring a fresher flavor but also come at a higher cost due to their brief harvest window. Ichibancha is a celebration of the new harvest, and despite its simplicity in flavor, its picked because it’s fresh. As the tea bush grows, the flavor evolves in the weeks, eventually becoming what we know as sencha.

Genmaicha is not always made from bancha. In some cases, tea companies use unsold sencha from previous years to make genmaicha. This practice allows a tea company to repurpose older products while marketing the result as a premium genmaicha, even if it doesn’t contain the finest ingredients. There are plenty of companies using fresh sencha to make genmaicha, but plenty using old teas too. It’s good to be aware of this fact.

This genmaicha, however, is crafted using the current harvest (2024) of ichibancha and rice. It’s expertly blended by a 10-dan (the highest rank) tea appraiser, Hiroshi Kobayashi, the only one in Kyoto, from ShogyokuEn.

What I find valuable about this tea is its versatility. Thanks to the ichibancha, when brewed at lower temperatures, it delivers a mild, green, vegetal, herbal flavour with the rice providing savory undertones. This makes it perfect for pairing with a wider range of foods, particularly white fish. On the other hand, if brewed with boiling water, the rice takes center stage, and the tea transforms into a more traditional genmaicha with flavors reminiscent of seasoned nori, corn nuts, and even dry instant ramen noodles with a touch of that dry pork spice pack. Boiling water will allow this tea to become what most people expect from genmaicha, but I feel its nice to have the choice to make it something else if desired.

My best brewing recipe for this tea so far has been using 5.3g of water with 330mL (a ratio of 1:62) using boiling water and steeping for 3 minutes and 15 seconds.