Genmai Green Tea with Puffed Rice 200g

Genmaicha (“brown rice tea”) is a Japanese brown rice green tea consisting of green tea mixed with roasted popped brown rice. It is sometimes referred to colloquially as “popcorn tea” because a few grains of the rice pop during the roasting process and resemble popcorn, or as “people’s tea”, as the rice served as a filler and reduced the price of the tea, making it historically more available for poorer Japanese.

According to a Japanese legend, in the fifteenth century, a servant named Genami was beheaded for the crime of dropping a few grains of rice into the tea served to his samurai master. Despite what happened, the warlord sipped the tea and was delighted to find that it had become a very tasty drink from the grain.