Genmaicha

Where it grows

Inherited from its components — Japan is the level this record can honestly claim. Green tea plus roasted rice, and the rice is a separate agriculture entirely. The leaf half is usually a modest bancha or sencha of no stated district.

How it is made, in order

Read top to bottom: the list is the production sequence, and the sequence is what makes this tea its category rather than a neighbouring one. The same leaf from the same bush becomes a green tea or a black tea depending on where the heat falls relative to the bruising, so reordering these steps would not vary the tea — it would produce a different one.

1. 1. Kill-green (fixation) — Denatures polyphenol oxidase and related enzymes, arresting enzymatic oxidation.
2. 2. Rolling and shaping — Ruptures cell walls to expose leaf juices, and forms the leaf into the shape it will hold through drying and storage.
3. 3. Roasting — Drives off residual moisture and drives thermal reactions in the finished leaf, deepening colour and building toasted aromatics.

The route it is made by

Not applicable — Green tea plus roasted rice. The leaf half follows the Japanese steamed route and the rice is a separate production entirely, so no single ordered route describes what is in the packet.

What its chemistry turns on

Every true tea contains caffeine, catechins and amino acids, so listing them would say nothing about this one. What differs is what the processing above does to them — and that is the same list of steps, read for its chemistry instead of its craft.

The compounds that substantially decide what this tea is: Pyrazines.

• Kill-green (fixation)
  • locks 2-Phenylethanol
  • locks Anthocyanins
  • locks Catechins
  • locks cis-3-Hexenol
  • locks Green-leaf volatiles
  • locks L-theanine
  • locks Leaf lipids
  • locks Methylated catechins
  • locks Theogallin
• Rolling and shaping
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • creates Theaflavins
  • raises Pectins
• Roasting
  • converts Free amino acids
  • converts L-theanine
  • converts Soluble sugars
  • creates Pyrazines
  • raises Beta-ionone
  • lowers Glutamic acid

These are statements about the leaf and the cup. What any of these compounds does in a body is a different kind of question and is not answered here or on the pages linked from it.

History

Roasted rice was originally blended with tea to make a small amount of leaf go further, and the tea carried a reputation as a poor person’s drink well into the twentieth century. It is now bought for the flavour, which is a complete inversion of why it was made.

TeaHQ synthesis — TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.

Brewing

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1.5–2.5 g/100 ml · 80–90 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Kyusu brewing (Japanese style)

  3–5 g/100 ml · 80–90 °C · 3 authored infusions

  Needs: Kyusu

  Open in the brew assistant

• Gongfu brewing (gaiwan)

  3–4 g/100 ml · 75–85 °C · 4 authored infusions

  Needs: Gaiwan

  Open in the brew assistant

• Cold brew tea

  2–3 g/100 ml · 3–8 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Glass teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Tea bag brewing

  1–1.8 g/100 ml · 85–95 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

Vessels this tea suits

Recorded against the tea rather than against a brewing style, because the vessel does not always follow from the method — a whisk needs lateral room whatever the schedule says, and compressed leaf needs a pick before any method applies at all.

• Dobin — A larger Japanese pot with an arched handle of bamboo or cane across the top, made for serving several people rather than for careful single-cup brewing. It is the everyday household vessel for roasted and coarse teas, which want volume and boiling water rather than restraint.

Common mistakes

• Brewing it as long as a black tea, which brings out a papery note

When the cup goes wrong

Written against green tea as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 37 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• I bought a big bag to save money and it was stale before I finished it — A large quantity bought at a good unit price faded well before it was drunk, so the saving turned into waste.
• I bought a water filter for my tea and it changed nothing — A filter jug or tap filter was bought specifically to improve the tea, and the cup tastes the same as it did before — with the same dullness, the same film and the same scale in the kettle.
• I have too many teas open and most of them are going stale — A dozen or more packets are open at once, three or four get drunk regularly, and the rest fade quietly on the shelf until they are thrown away.
• Leaves stick to the cup, the pot and my teeth — Fine leaf clings to the inside of the vessel, comes through into the cup, and ends up in the last mouthful.
• My bamboo whisk is losing tines — Fine bamboo tines snap off during whisking and turn up in the bowl, and the whisk feels stiff and splayed.
• My cold brew tastes like faintly flavoured water — After a night in the fridge the jug is pale and tastes of very little, with none of the sweetness cold brewing is supposed to give.

Every diagnosed brewing problem

If you like this

Grouped by why they were suggested, strongest reason first. Nothing here is a blended score — a suggestion appears under the best reason that exists for it, and never under a weaker one as well.

Compare this tea with another

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison. Each one is a written page with the points of difference argued out.

• Genmaicha vs matcha-iri genmaicha — The green version with matcha blended in is now the more common product, and the reason is not that it is better tea. It is that the matcha covers for what is underneath. Put the two side by side
• Hojicha vs genmaicha — Two toasty Japanese green teas sold side by side, whose toastiness comes from entirely different places. One is roasted after processing; the other has roasted rice blended into unroasted leaf, and the distinction changes what each is good for. Put the two side by side
• Hojicha vs genmaicha: which to start with — Both are recommended to newcomers for the same reason and they solve different problems. Choosing between them depends on what put you off green tea. Put the two side by side
• Sencha vs genmaicha — Genmaicha is sencha or bancha with roasted rice added, and the rice does more than add flavour — it changes what the tea is for. Put the two side by side

Botanicals this connects to

• Roasted rice — Genmaicha is bancha or sencha blended with this roasted rice. The rice is half the product.

Where this tea is drunk

Documented practices that name this tea. Each page describes what is done and by whom, and separates what is recorded from what is repeated.

• Everyday Japanese tea — What tea actually is in Japan for almost everybody — free with a meal, bought cold in a bottle, made by the litre in a jug at home — and how far that is from the practice foreign readers have been taught to think of as Japanese tea.
• Sweets with tea, and matcha as a flavour — Why a bitter bowl of tea is served with something intensely sweet, how the sweet is chosen for the season, and how matcha travelled out of the tea room to become a flavour on everything from ice cream to a chocolate bar.

Journeys featuring this tea

• Discover Japanese tea — Someone who has had sencha or matcha and wants the rest of the picture.
• Finding your first loose leaf tea — Someone ready to buy loose leaf and unsure which of the hundreds of names to start with.

Guides covering this tea

• Scented and flavoured are two different productions, with a difference you can taste
• Storing flavoured, scented and blended teas, which behave unlike plain leaf