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My wife was given this tea for her birthday. Naturally, she wondered if it was really for her! We have not tasted Genmaicha before and we tried it for the first time today. It is a hearty tea with a very toasty taste and aroma to it. I cannot decide how much I like it, but suspect that it is a ‘mood’ tea: great when you are in the mood for it. I did not notice much green tea in the flavour, because it seemed to be swamped by the toasted rice flavour that dominated. I think I was expecting something more delicate. Well, never mind. This is another tea that has its place in our cupboard for when we are in the mood for it. I shall try it again and report back when I have more time to spend working out the flavours and seeing if there is as much behind the rice flavour as the blurb from the website claims.

My brother in Copenhagen sent me some of these for Christmas and finishing the packet has reminded me that I need to write them up.

I like flowering teas because of the sheer aesthetic pleasure to be had from watching them unfurl. I have a large glass teapot for this purpose and often bring it and a flowering tea out at the end of dinner when we have guests round. My family are a bit blase about flowering teas now, but I still get a good reaction from other guests.

This tea is a nice green tea that unfurls with pink flowers. The tea itself is as you would expect a decent green tea to be. It is not absolutely stunning, but it is just the thing for a hot day: light, refreshing and you can drink a lot of it without unpleasant side-effects. It is not stunning like my favourite Anji Bai Cha, but it is not awful like some of the bagged green teas either. It is a solidly good product. I shall certainly not complain if I receive more of this next Christmas! Hmm, I wonder if my brother actually reads Steepster. If so, hint, hint, bro! :-)

Can’t believe I have not logged this tea before. It is everything they promise in the description. The liquor is almost clear. The flavour is light, refreshing, sweet, slightly grassy with a floral aftertaste. There is so much going in in this one that it takes a while to really get to grips with it. I know that when I got my first packet of it last summer, I thought it was nice but not mind-blowing. Now that I have a lot more experience under my belt, I find it to be a most excellent tea for summer days sitting in the conservatory marking essays, or indeed any other occasion when a lighter tea is needed.

This is also another tea that looks awesome in the glass teapot. Visually, it is not up there with the Anji Bai Cha, but it is still most pleasing.

This is the last of the samples I received from Teavivre. I have been meaning to write it up for a while but can only plead extreme ennui, which is a shame because I received a large sample and have been enjoying it regularly for a week now.

The keyword in my excuse above is ‘enjoying’. This is a lovely green tea and it has given me much pleasure. The leaves look beautiful and suspend in the teapot very pleasingly. I generally use a glass teapot for my green teas, and in this case particularly, the visual aesthetic is emphasised by doing so. It smells grassy and slightly nutty. When brewed these flavours come to the fore and I find myself not wanting to swallow the tea because my tastebuds are dancing around in delight as I roll the tea around my mouth. The aftertaste is sweet and I can imagine that my breath now has a nutty, buttery, grassy deliciousness to it as I breathe out. Yes, this is a tea that is well worth savouring and is one I shall add to my buying list.