Genmaicha

I decided to try genmaicha (brown rice/popcorn green tea) today. When I opened the bag, I noticed that it was covered in matcha powder (Matcha-iri genmaicha). How exciting! ^o^ Anywho. I sniffed the contents and it carried a very light, almost unnoticeable scent of popcorn. I was sort of skeptical because I couldn't pick up any trace of green tea (or for that matter, the strong scent of green tea that I am used to).

I brewed for about 3 minutes... I wanted the lightest brew possible.After pouring it through a strainer, the color was actually a darker green instead of the yellow pictured above. My camera isn't the best, so I'm pretty upset it showed up as yellow. However I was able to capture the powder/cloudy aspect of the tea. After a while, the dust settled down (LOL the saying made me chuckle) and sunk to the bottom. The more it settled, the more clear the tea became.

The aroma after brewing had a more mild popcorn scent with a (brown) rice undertone. I sat for a minute to see what kind of aroma therapy effects it had... and sadly, it was just "nice." It didn't do much relaxing for me physically nor mentally as longjing did. I also noticed that after 30 or so minutes of consumption, my stomach felt a bit unsettled. Since genmaicha has a similar taste to the tea they serve at sushi restaurants (without the added matcha powder), I am assuming that the matcha powder annoyed my GERD. I would try it again, but since it feels like there are more negatives than positives... matcha-iri genmaicha is not my go-to tea. :(

-- edit --
I was thinking about as to why I was so displeased with genmaicha. But then I remembered an article I read. Apparently this tea is a commoner's tea and historically, the roasted rice was added to the tea to bring costs down thus making it more "affordable." Whereas longjing was labeled as an imperial tea because of its high qualities. I guess I am already spoiled, lol.