Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha

Got this for my birfffffday! It’s nice and tasty too.. love the marshmallow but wish it had more matcha in the blend like Samovar’s Ryokucha. Still great though!

I absolutely love this genmaicha. It tastes nothing like a marshmallow treat to me, however, it tastes and smells a lot like cream soda. I LOVE cream soda. Though, I only drink diet sodas and rarely do, at that, cream soda is my favorite of them all. Pairing my favorite green tea with my favorite soda flavor = instant staple in my cupboard.

Note: This is an edited version of a review I made to one of my Tumblr blogs. (It will appear on Steepster before it is posted to my blog, since I’m using a queue.)

Note 2: This is the reblend version with the marshmallow root.

I added: Sugar.
Smell (dry): Slightly sweet marshmallow treats (left out awhile, maybe). (Sometimes you catch an edge of bitterness to the smell, but otherwise it smells nice. I left the packet open on the table as I wrote the review and the area smells nommy.)
Smell (brewed): Matcha with a dash of rice tea scent.
Color (brewed): Greenish-gold

Taste (plain): Green tea. I’m not sure how else to put it. It doesn’t taste at all like it smells (either dry or brewed). It’s a fairly mellow green tea (not too bitter). I don’t taste the toasted rice, marshmallow root, or anything else.

Taste (sugared): With the sugar, the green tea seems to oddly taste more bitter. (I wonder if that’s the matcha I taste? I could smell it for sure, but didn’t know it was in the mix until I went back to the 52 Teas website) I can taste a bit of the toasted rice and a faint marshmallow flavor now. I can better taste the sweet/marshmallow flavor if I “gulp” and let it roll over my tongue rather than letting it linger.

Actually – I got to the end of the cup where I suppose most of the sugar settled and suddenly it tastes quite like a marshmallow treat… and then is quickly overpowered by the bitterness of the green tea. It may be a flavoring issue on my end, rather than the tea itself.

Other comments: This was the tea that started it all, really. Or, at least, my tendency to order from 52 Teas specifically. I was reading reviews of a different tea (the one I’ll review next) on Steepster and looked at their Top Something list of teas where I saw “Marshmallow Treat” listed. I was fascinated – and then immediately disappointed when I realized it was a limited edition flavor. But it made me browse the site and sign up for their newsletter.

And then, one day near December, it happened: They re-released the flavor! Iee! I ordered three packets of tea (Pancake Breakfast, Cinnamon Roll Honeybush, and this) and prepared myself for the taste explosion to come!

Unfortunately, even fresh it never lived up to the hype – for me.

Would I buy it again?: Sadly, no. Maybe if it were paired with another base? I love the concept and it’s easy to tell from the smell that they came close. But I’m not sure I like green tea anymore. I know it’s meant to be very good for you and I certainly want to like it, but the bitterness I generally taste turns me off. It also smells like what I want it to taste like, but doesn’t taste like it.

Noting: It’s pretty good for a green tea. It’s one of the least bitter green teas I’ve had, actually.

Would I recommend it?: If you like green tea and you like marshmallow treats, why not? It’s a limited edition flavor, but I know for sure they’ve re-released it at least once. So you always have a shot if you keep your eyes open for it. Just be prepared to work with it until you get the right flavor balance. It may be something like, “Add cream!” or “Add half a tablespoon of sugar.” – I don’t know.

PS: I did try it with creamer for my third cup on a whim and it was… interesting. It may be just my imagination that it tasted more like marshmallow, though. But it certainly utterly negated the bitterness. I may try it like this again.

Hm, hm, hm. I think I can grok the love, though I don’t necessarily feel it myself. The marshmallow treat nose feels very separated from the genmaicha taste, and by making room for each other in the blend they both give up some of their space and power. The flavoring also has a very — I don’t know how else to describe this — flat bottom, like it sits up top and then there’s a horizon that it just doesn’t sink past. Interesting, and a fun tasting — just not my cup. I know this about myself and scented/flavored teas — it’s a rare, rare blend that gets me raving.

I finally got the chance to get some 52 Teas because I finally timed it to get the kind of samples I want. I got this one and a two new ones that might not be there for long. Smelling the bag, it smells like marshmallow flavored popcorn, or white chocolate covered popcorn. Brewing up the leaf, it’s smells like typical Genmaicha. Tasting it, it’s very savory and desert-like-it makes me imagine white chocolate with popped rice in it. It’s a weird combo that works, and I like how much the marshmallow offsets the marine green tea qualities, and balances the toasty rice qualities.

I’m glad I tried it because I’ve had very few teas like it. I’m still preferential to blacks and oolongs, but I’m very happy to have this unique blend on hand as a sample.

Happy National Popcorn Day! (For those playing along in the Sipdown Challenge Home Game, today is “drink a genmaicha” day!)

Bah, making this tea was such a comedy of errors before work… I had very little time available to boil the water/steep the tea/get tea into work thermos, and then I forgot I needed to switch the default temperature on the kettle because this is green tea and not black/oolong, so the water boiled way too hot… so I was pacing around trying to figure out just how late for work I was going to be waiting for the water to cool enough to use plus still get in my two minute steep…

Hardly a relaxing morning cuppa!

Now I have a 12 oz cuppa in the work thermos (hopefully I can more properly make another cup at lunch break) to sip on throughout the morning. This is one of my last 2017 52Teas packets I need to finish off, but it was still sealed and when I opened it, there was tons of aroma… a creamy vanilla scent plus toasty genmai.

It’s very satisfying. The green tea is maybe not as fresh as it once was, but I’m still getting a nice grassy/hot hay flavor from it. The genmai still gives it a very warm, toasty flavor of roasted rice and oats. After the flavor of the genmaicha settles a bit, I’m left with a sweeter, cream-flavored aftertaste on the back of my tongue. It is quite subtle during the sip, but there is a sweetness and a slightly creamier mouthfeel that is quite pleasant. There is something about genmaicha I’ve always found very “cozy” which I’m reminded of this morning, now that all the hecticness around the actual brewing of the tea is passed and I can just sit at my desk and drink it.

Nom!

Sipdown!

Sad to see this one go but I’ve been hoarding on to this one for a bit and I don’t think that was a wise choice. The tea had a bit of a stale feel to it but was still delicious and I enjoyed every sip. Sweet, toasty, buttery, all the tea feels with this one.

Thanks to amandastory516 for this tea! It tastes mostly just like genmaicha, which I love. The marshmallow came through as a little sweetness. Definitely more noticeable as it cools. So this tea is delicious due to the fact that it’s genmaicha, but I would have liked a little more marshmallow in there. The sweetness was fun though.

Just finished off a 15g packet. I have 1 (maybe 2?) more sample packets somewhere. Such a delicious blend. Definitely the best version of a marshmallow treat tea.

I had this a few days ago. Took it with me when I went about the town doing errands. It was mainly toasted rice and had the yumminess of roasted marshmallows. The genmaicha plus the addition of matcha carries it well. It tastes very much like the Marshmallow treats that I loved so much when I was a kid. Glad it’s one of their permanent collections.