I drink a lot of green tea, and I’ve tried many many types and flavours, and my favourite is definitely ‘genmaicha’, a Japanese green tea with ‘genmai’ or roasted rice. The smell when you make the tea is gorgeous, and the rice adds a wonderful flavour to it. Some makes call it popcorn green tea because of how good it smells, a bit like popcorn.
As happens, a lot, I wondered about roasting the rice myself and making my own version of the tea so that I can control the amount of rice and the flavour – added to which, genmaicha tea is never the cheapest green tea to buy so why not attempt my own??
I had some roasted leaf green tea in my cupboard and thought that the toasted rice would be a nice addition to it, so I set about the Internet to see if anyone else had made their own too. I found one site with some useful information and I made my own assessment of what they’d done and made my own plan…
In a perfect world you’d use proper Japanese rice, but failing that, I used what I had: weirdly, I used Spanish paella rice. The rice is white and plump and looks a bit like a Japanese rice so why not?
I soaked the rice in lots of water for 24 hours then drained and dried it.
I then toasted it in a wide non stick pan over a medium to high heat for about 20 mins, moving it constantly. As it started to brown, I kept a really keen eye on it and didn’t leave it alone at all to ensure none of it burnt.
I then poured it into a large piece of grease proof paper to cool before testing it in my tea.
And hey presto! It works!!! It tastes great! It’s so cool!
So, if you’ve never tried it before, how about making your own genmaicha?
I’m taking my tea along to this week’s Fiesta Friday, co hosted this week by Diann and Antonia, and hope that everyone enjoys a refreshing cup of my homemade genmaicha…
UPDATE: I have now also soaked and toasted brown basmati rice which I added to loose sencha green tea – this works REALLY well. The rice smells so good and adds great flavour, and some even pop in the pan. And the sencha is a lovely smooth refreshing green tea…
This is wild! And fascinating.
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Thank you 😀😀
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You know I’m going to be trying that soon! Love genmaicha but often the toasted rice taste is a bit overpowering for me….
superb job!
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Thank you 😊😊😊
It’s a perfect way to tailor it isn’t it? I like more rice in mine 👍🏻
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Elaine!!!! I’ve been saving this picture ti send you of the famous Azul Historica restaurant in Mexican City where all the plates are hand made in Your favorite blues! XxxxxSent from my iPhone
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I’d love to see it, sadly it hasn’t come up here..:(
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I’m a big green tea drinker too, but never heard of this! I’ll definitely have to try it out. 🙂
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I hope you like it!
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Sounds pretty interesting Elaine. What would be the amounts used to make a nice cup of this toasted rice tea?
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I think I’ve used 2:1 tea to rice, but you could also go 3:2, I think you’d have to play with it to get the taste you like…
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Never heard of adding roasted rice to tea. How interesting!
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😊😊 you’ll have to give it a try!
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Brilliant! I must try this too. Perhaps not only great for drinking but you might try staining paper with the tea and making art. Just a thought.
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Great idea! Is that what you do?
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I don’t think I’ve tried genmaicha, but I’ve had roasted barley tea. I wonder if they taste similar? I’m always learning something new from you, Elaine! You’re a teacher!
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Ha ha! I’ll take that as a compliment 😀😘
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Fantastic Elaine – we share a love of green tea and my favourite is also Japanese with roasted rice – I’m a sucker for paying $40 for a 250g bag – even though I know the rice means less of the good stuff from the green tea. Thanks for sharing!
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It’s never the cheapest option is it??!
Thank you x
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Wow! This is so inventive and it looks amazing. I have never tasted genmaicha and I realize I have been missing out! And making your own! What an amazing idea 🙂
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It’s really tasty, I hope you like it if you try it x
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Love this, so cool! Thank you for bringing your unique and delicious creation to the party! Happy Fiesta Friday!
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Thank you 😊😊😊
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Have you ever tried High Mountain Oolong Tea?
ITS THE BEST, HANDS DOWN! don’t get me wrong High quality genmaicha is sooo good but with high mountain Oolong it’s like drinking the essence of life
it’s like if I told you i had a device , a Quantum nullifier that removed happiness out of the cutest animals , in some lab in there’s a parade of Puppies’s miniature ponies , kittens and pygmy pigs are Marching through this nullification beam within the device they experience infinite time while being fully aware , and for us it’s only a couple of seconds for them it’s Infinity they come out the other end ancient broken withered things, blind and hissing at sun , every bit of happiness and youthful rejuvinative properties sucked out of them and turned into a juice which I pour into my coffee every morning Which is why I exude Happiness and maintain my youthful complexion
High altitude Oolong tea is the natural equivalent ,no harm to cute puppies done
Shan Lin Si Oolong , Ali Shan Oolong are AMAZING and I speculate that if a monk sipped some Da Yu Ling High Mountain Oolong tea He would reach Enlightement
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I haven’t tried it, but thank you for the recommendation!
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I have never heard of this, but it sounds fun. I use a toasted rice powder in my larb, which is Vietnamese but this is now another thing to think about. I wonder how many toasted rice dishes there are!
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Ooh, I don’t know, something new to explore…?!
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Pingback: Toasted rice green tea… — foodbod – NaughTea Girl Expressions
I have never heard of this, but it sounds fun.
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Thank you!
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Is sound very unusual! …the photos are very good!
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Thank you very much 😀
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