Kaga Genmaicha

Maruhachi Tea Factory was founded in Kaga, Ishikawa Prefecture in 1863. This tea factory has been making the finest roasted teas for six generations, from the Edo Period to the present day. They maintain their reputation by focusing on the quality and parts of the tea plant used, the consistent blending of the tea stems, and their refined and innovative method for roasting them.

This inspiring Genmaicha from them is a blend of fresh sencha from Shizuoka and Kagoshima and toasted rice, grown in Komatsu City of Ishikawa Prefecture. For the first several infusions it is definitely more sencha forward, with the subtle sweetness of toasted rice backing the briny, electric green notes of the tea.

Sencha is a fantasy tea: it tastes grassy and earthless, and produces a glowing yellow-green liquor that appears to be plugged into some absent power source. The leaves look fresh as soon as they contact water, and reanimate into semi-translucent emerald fragments.

We smell the rice more than we taste it in this genmaicha -- the saline, umami qualities of the sencha are so forward, the rice appears only after we have been fully submerged in the ocean notes of the sencha. If you love sencha, you will enjoy this intertidal genmaicha immensely. By the fifth infusion the sencha's taste has softened and the rice is more prominent: we feel them change roles and enjoy the calmness that follows a revitalizing swim.