While I’m a coffee girl first and foremost (I do live in Seattle, after all), I drink a lot of hot tea in the cooler months of the year. While my motivations are primarily practical (we keep our house on the cool side because it’s cute-but-old, lacking in insulation and expensive to heat) I do enjoy tea and appreciate the diversity of flavor profiles.
During my weekly two-hour classes at my local Zen Buddhist monastery, they always serve us tea and light snacks (a plate of neatly arranged apple or pear slices, some small cookies) during the mid point break. It’s always a surprise what type of tea will be in the pot. Sometimes mint, sometimes chamomile, sometimes green, sometimes a blend. Recently, they introduced what was labeled as “brown rice tea.” It was love at first sip.
I tend to not care for sweet, fruity teas. I do love Earl Grey, but my tastes run mostly toward herbal, floral or spicy flavors, as well as to the simplicity of a good-quality, unadorned black, green, oolong or white tea. This mysterious brown rice tea had a very toasty aroma which translated to a slight, very pleasant sweetness on the tongue.
Thanks to the magic of Google, I was quickly able to ascertain that my new tea love was in fact, genmaicha, or green tea married with toasted brown rice. I picked up the box pictured above at my local PCC, and it was all I hoped for, and more. Love it! I’m sure their are many, many other brands (which I look forward to trying), but this one was on sale, and I had a Chinook Book coupon. If you’re a tea lover and have yet to experience genmaicha, I highly recommend it.