Clearspring- Organic Japanese Genmaicha

Last Christmas I got my Dad a teapig's selection pack, and one of the teas he raved about was the popcorn tea. So when I was in Waitrose and saw this brand, I decided to try it.

I had not heard of Clearspring tea before, but the back of the pack tells me that the tea was grown and packaged in Japan at the Nagata Tea Gardens, Kyoto.

Genmaicha is japanese green tea with toasted rice. The tea was about £1 cheaper than teapigs, and when I opened up the packet, I discovered standard teabags, rather than the pyramid style tea pigs do. I could smell the popcorn aroma, but also the grassy smell of green tea

I boiled the kettle and waited the requisite minute in order to prevent scalding the tea. Upon addition of water to the mug, a green colour developed straight away. After a minute and a half, the green colour was quite vivid, and their was a strong popcorn smell.

On first tasting I detected the nutty popcorn flavour, but the grassy green tea flavour was a little overpowering for me. However I let it cool and as it cooled the grass flavour faded and  the popcorn flavour began to come through stronger.

I don't think this is going to become a favourite, I think I'd rather have a cup of earl grey and a bag of popcorn! But, variety is the spice of life so I will keep hold of the rest of the box. I also need to continue to develop my green tea taste buds a little more as I did enjoy the popcorn flavour to the tea.