Reporting in. I, too, found the experience not worth repeating. Ah, well.
I do wonder whether it’s the adding the bourbon to brewed tea that flattens the experience, rather than brewing a tea already infused with bourbon essence by skilled tea blenders. Oh, well, so many teas out there to enjoy…
Which reminds me, time to brew another mugful.
More tea has arrived! From Harney & Sons:
Tauseg Blend: Green tea with pineapple and coconut flavoring
White Christmas: White tea with vanilla and almond flavoring
Bee’s Knees: White tea with honey, lemon, and gin flavoring
Salted Caramel: Black tea with caramel, Himalayan salt, and vanilla flavoring
Venetian Tiramisu: White tea with hojicha (Japanese roasted green tea), cacao nibs, and cocoa
I look forward to trying them all.
I thought this might be the thread to ask about something I just learned about: hojicha powder. That’s a link to a company that sells it. They describe it like this:
Our authentic Hojicha Powder is made from tea leaves grown in the fields of Kyoto, the famed tea growing region where it first originated 100 years ago. After soaking up the sun, the tea leaves are harvested and carefully steamed, rolled, and dried. The green tea leaves are then expertly roasted to bring out the distinct notes of cocoa and earthy undertones that distinguish this unique Japanese tea. The roasted tea is finely milled to provide a smooth experience as the Hojicha Powder perfectly dissolves to create rich and creamy lattes and tea infused desserts.
It essentially sounds like matcha, but roasted. Has anyone here every tried it? Is it any good?
The Hojicha I got from Harney & Sons is made with roasted green tea twigs, very small, short, thin pieces, and I love it! It’s delicious. It’s also very different from Matcha. Harney & Sons also offers a tea called Matcha Iri Genmaicha which is described as: “Genmaicha is coated with Matcha. This tea is a blend of large Bancha leaves and the brown toasted rice with occasional popped rice dusted with brilliant green tea powder.”
I’m really curious what they believe is even a plausible mechanism for this effect. Are they positing some kind of caffeine inhibitor that comes out of tea leaves in a slow release fashion? Because the alternative explanation is that tea “sucks in” caffeine after releasing it.
Otherwise, the much more relevant takeaway is don’t take X sellers as gospels on the properties of X, they’re likely repeating some half remembered mumbo jumbo and they’re not super committed to telling the truth.
When I Google the claim that the longer you steep the tea, the less caffeine directly enters the bloodstream, it says that it’s a myth.
Very interesting! It sounds like the they don’t grind the Harney & Sons version into a powder, then. I’m glad to hear you like it - I think I’m going to have to give it a try. I like matcha, but I don’t love it - it’s a bit too grassy for me in general, so I’m thinking Hojicha might be better suited to me.
A moment’s logical consideration of the theory indeed makes it patently silly. Unless one steeped the tea for a minute or two, then dumped it out and resteeped the same leaves, it’s just not gonna happen.
@ShadowFacts I hope you enjoy the Hojicha as much as I have. There are other toasted/roasted grain tisanes, like Japanese Soba, that are also delicious.
“Twigs” makes it sound more like bancha than matcha to me, whether it’s ground or not.
I just got in an order from Den’s Tea with a bancha, hojicha, genmaicha, kukisha, dattan sobacha, and organic hojicha, and while the bancha looks twiglike, it’s actually tightly rolled leaves. The hojichas are bits of stem. None of the Den’s teas are ground, though some tea vendors’ hojichas are powdered.