Genmaicha (玄米茶)

Genmaicha is a tea of green tea leaves blended with roasted brown rice (genmai), and it belongs to the everyday tea tradition of Japan rather than to the formal tea room. It is understood as a tea of the Kansai, where the roasted rice and the leaf were brought together as a plain, thrifty drink. It is carried by the tea merchants and the households that keep it as the tea for the table, taken with meals and offered to guests without ceremony.

Genmaicha is made from green tea, Camellia sinensis, usually bancha or a lower grade of sencha, mixed with brown rice that has been steamed, then roasted until it is golden and some grains burst open like small popped kernels. The two are blended in roughly equal parts by volume, and the rice gives the tea a toasted aroma and a pale golden-green liquor. Some blends add a little matcha to deepen the colour and the body. Because much of the volume is rice, the leaf is lightly bound and the cup is mild and soft in character.

Genmaicha is drunk with the everyday meal and especially with fried food, tempura, tonkatsu and grilled fish, and with sushi in the noodle and sushi shop. The roasted rice gives a savoury, nutty note that sits easily beside salt, oil and soy, and the low astringency of the leaf cleans the mouth without competing with the dish. It is also served with sweets of rice and bean, whose own grain flavour it echoes.