Japanese Genmaicha Loose Leaf Green Tea

Genmaicha is a Japanese green tea blended with toasted brown rice. It is sometimes called popcorn tea, not because it has any corn in it, but because of the flavour.

Traditionally, Japanese genmaicha was made with older or lower quality sencha leaves, using toasted rice as a means of disguising diminished flavour, aroma, and quality of the tea.

Our genmaicha is rather different. We select the top grade sencha tea leaves from the Moriuchi tea garden in Shizuoka, and organically grown toasted brown rice. Our ambition is to deliciously enhance delicious tea, not disguise poor quality.

Genmaicha has a very particular flavour and aroma that is distinct from all other Japanese tea. The special flavour of genmaicha comes from the inclusion of the toasted rice, adding a comforting sweetness of cereal milk with notes of popcorn and a gentle nutty flavour. The rice softens the sencha and makes it a deliciously approachable green tea.

Compared specifically to our Japanese Sencha Green Tea, or Gyokuro, which have bright, buttery notes of asparagus, genmaicha has the clean notes of traditional tea from Japan, with a softness and roundness that is less vegetal.

Yes, genmaicha has caffeine. It is made from Japanese green tea and all tea (black tea as well as green tea) comes from the same plant (Camelia sinensis), which contains caffeine in its leaves. The addition of toasted brown rice, however, means that you may drink less actual tea per cup, reducing the caffeine content of your tea.

For this reason some people find genmaicha more soothing and good for relaxation.

We are often asked about the difference between genmaicha and matcha.

They are such worlds apart in terms of flavour, it is very hard to compare. True, they are both traditional Japanese green teas, but genmaicha is a sencha leaf tea you make an infusion from, and matcha is a powdered leaf you whisk to suspend in water. For this reason, you get way more leaf in a matcha and so more caffeine and more intensity. Genmaicha, on the other hand, is more subtle and soft in flavour, and provides a more gentle lift.

We do, however, have a Japanese GenMatcha, which is Genmaicha that has been ground into a fine powder, to be used in tea lattes, hot or iced. It's also delicious in cakes and desserts. Though similar in look to traditional matcha, the flavour remains distinct, with its notes of cereal milk and popcorn.

It is not just the development of new milling technologies that has allowed genmaicha to be ground into a matcha-like powder, it has also changed based on the development of tea storage technology.

Historically in Japanese society, genmaicha was created as a way of using up old green tea. Bulk tea was stored in paper or wooden boxes. They had no way of actually keeping tea airtight, and it deteriorated over time as the leaf oxidised in contact with air. Green tea leaves oxidise even more rapidly than black tea (it is vitally important to always store all your precious tea in its tin or a tea caddy that is airtight, away from heat and direct sunlight).

Now we can keep tea airtight to preserve all of its delicious quality and freshness - not to mention all the other technological advances in tea, from temperature control to oxygen-free packaging. There is no need for good tea to be wasted. Our genmaicha is made with the Moriuchi garden's best sencha - using the slightly more broken pieces, but still of the utmost quality. The addition of rice is there to make it an even more delicious tea, not mask poor quality.