Dry leaf has a potent, cereal-like aroma.

First infusion brews a hazy, pale golden cup...it almost looks like there's a tiny bit of iridescent dust on top of the tea's surface.

Flavor is mild but delightful...sweet, crisp, and with a hint of a fruitiness that I can only describe as reminiscent of cola. It sort of suggested sweetness, but in a deeper, darker way, less transient than the fruitiness of many teas.

The name of this tea puzzles me...it seems like genmaicha+matcha...is ryokucha used as the base? This isn't clear from the company's description.

Very atypical for a genmaicha. I found that I was unable to get the brewed cup to smell as complex as the dry leaf, however. I got many infusions, and they were all mild and enjoyable. The brewing temperature did not seem to affect the outcome very much. Easy to brew, although hard to get as strong tasting...this seems pretty mellow even if I use longer steeping times and more leaf. Works better with many, shorter infusions.

This tea was very, very expensive...the price really surprises me. Why use such high-end tea for Genmaicha? It's pricier even than Octavia's genmaicha, which I think I liked better than this one...granted, that's a very different tea, less complex on the fruity end, and without matcha.

Was this better than, say, Wegmans genmaicha with matcha? Absolutely, as far as I'm concerned. I even thought it was better than Aiya's, which is in a similar price range. Was it worth the price though? Probably not, to me. If I'm going to spend this much on tea I want a pure tea...a pure green tea, or maybe an oolong or maybe even a very high grade of single-estate black tea.

Thank you to E. Alexander Gerster for this sample!

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