Genmaicha, Japan's toasted rice tea.

Lesson 1: what genmaicha is

Genmai (玄米) means brown rice. Cha (茶) means tea. Genmaicha is green tea, usually sencha or bancha, blended with roasted rice.

During roasting some grains pop open like tiny white popcorn. That is why people sometimes call it popcorn tea.

Ours is first flush chumushi sencha from our family farm in Shizuoka, blended 50/50 by weight with organic brown rice from Kagoshima and Miyazaki.

Lesson 2: how it tastes

Toasted rice leads: fresh popcorn, rice crackers, a little malt. The green tea follows with a soft, clean, slightly grassy finish.

There is very little bitterness, because half of the cup is rice. It stays mellow even when you brew it a little too long. That makes it a good first tea for people who think they do not like green tea.

Lesson 3: how much caffeine is in genmaicha?

A typical 200 ml cup of genmaicha carries roughly 20 mg of caffeine. That is why it is a common afternoon and dinner tea in Japan.

Lesson 4: three origin stories, and the honest answer

Japanese tea houses tell three versions. Most place genmaicha in the late Taishō to early Shōwa era, around the 1920s and 1930s.

1. The Kyoto mochi story. A Kyoto tea merchant roasted broken pieces of New Year kagami mochi, rice cakes offered at the household altar, and mixed them into tea so nothing went to waste. Japanese makers link it to shimatsu (始末), the Kyoto habit of using everything.
2. The Osaka merchant story. A tea seller in Osaka mixed roasted dried rice into tea to stretch it and add flavour.
3. The okoge story. In kaiseki cooking, hot water poured over scorched rice (okoge) at the end of a meal made a toasty drink that later met green tea.

Lesson 5: genmaicha, hojicha and matcha iri genmaicha

Lesson 6: how to brew genmaicha

Our pack guide is 2 g in 180 ml at 80°C for 1 to 3 minutes: gentle, clean and very hard to get wrong. Want the rice louder? Use more leaf and hotter water, around 85 to 90°C, for a shorter steep. Just keep it off the boil so the green tea does not turn bitter.

Lesson 7: genmaicha benefits, honestly

People search for genmaicha benefits. Here is what can be said plainly. It is a green tea, so it carries the same family of compounds as sencha, diluted by the rice. It is low in caffeine. Brewed plain, it has no meaningful kilojoules. And it is gentle enough to drink with food or in the evening.

What cannot be said: that the rice or the tea treats any condition. No good human trial shows that, and we do not claim it.

Lesson 8: choosing and storing genmaicha

1. Named tea and rice. A good genmaicha says what tea and what rice it uses.
2. Fresh toast. The rice should smell freshly toasted, not stale or oily.
3. Green leaves. Not brown.
4. Sealed, cool, dark. Toasted rice soaks up smells, so keep it away from spices and coffee.
5. Best within a month or two once opened.