Teabag - Genmaicha

Tea: Genmaicha
Vendor: Maeda-en
Price: $4.50 / 10 teabags
Vendor Description: Craving a good cup of tea, but not in the mood to deal with the mess? We have just the solution for you!
Maeda-en is proud to offer you deliciousness and convenience all at the same time: crushed Genmai-cha (leaves AND rice!) are packed in mesh pyramid bags for the maximum steeping & easy clean up. It brews the beautiful green liquor, and tastes just like a whole leaf brew!

Teabag: The teabag for this tea has some very small rice in it. I would guess to say that the rice has been crushed like the tea. There is a quite a bit of dust on the teabag as well as inside of the package. There is a moderate amount of stem pieces in the mix. The mix reminds me quite a bit of the mix that was in the sencha teabag.

1st Infusion Parameters: 185F, 3min, 5 oz, 1 teabag (2g)

1st Infusion: The tea comes out lightly murky, through the murkiness there is a lightly radiant yellow-green color. The aroma is very broad and strong and is primarily represented by the toasted rice aroma. It reminds me very much of rice crackers. The flavor of the tea itself has a medium strength with a very soft flavor. It is very much dominated by the rice flavor.

Rating: 5/10

Conclusion: Like the sencha this teabag was an improvement on their previous product's design, although like the sencha I would have liked to see more leaf in the bag. I also didn't really see any reason to crush the tea, larger leaf like that used by most nicer teabag producers would have probably been nicer.