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dorchadas
I've occasionally seen fancy food being marketed as made with genmaicha, or "Genmaicha Brown Rice Tea" (see also Panko Bread Crumbs or ATM Machine--玄米茶 is literally "brown rice tea"), and it always makes me laugh. Genmaicha is upper-end working class food, a way for people to stretch out their supplies of tea in the post-war period when shortages were common. But just like with sushi rice, it turned out that he additives were pretty tasty and improved the whole product, and so it's still sold to this day. Including at the Persian grocery store in Andersonville, which is why we currently have half a bag of genmaicha in our tea cupboard.
Then again, ramen is also working class food and look what American chefs have done to it.
I love genmaicha, so when our monthly Rakka shipment came I was extremely excited to try this one and pushed it ahead of the queue. So we sat down, unwrapped it, and it looked like just a bar of chocolate. That's when I had my first suspicions, and then we took a bite and confirmed them.
At least the packaging is plain.
I wish I actually had something to write, but unfortunately I wouldn't even have known that this was genmaicha flavored if it hadn't said so on the packaging. That's happened before, like with the Theo Chocolate Black Rice Quinoa Crunch, but at least that chocolate bar had a nice, satisfying crunch throughout. This one just had a few crunchy bits here and there like the chocolate had been badly-blended.
Fortunately, I have exactly the emoji I can use to sum up my reaction to this chocolate:
I should have just ate some chocolate and made myself a cup of genmaicha. I would have been happier in the end.
No tea visible is a bad sign.
schoolpsychnerd's Opinion
Then again, ramen is also working class food and look what American chefs have done to it.
I love genmaicha, so when our monthly Rakka shipment came I was extremely excited to try this one and pushed it ahead of the queue. So we sat down, unwrapped it, and it looked like just a bar of chocolate. That's when I had my first suspicions, and then we took a bite and confirmed them.
I wish I actually had something to write, but unfortunately I wouldn't even have known that this was genmaicha flavored if it hadn't said so on the packaging. That's happened before, like with the Theo Chocolate Black Rice Quinoa Crunch, but at least that chocolate bar had a nice, satisfying crunch throughout. This one just had a few crunchy bits here and there like the chocolate had been badly-blended.
Fortunately, I have exactly the emoji I can use to sum up my reaction to this chocolate:
I should have just ate some chocolate and made myself a cup of genmaicha. I would have been happier in the end.
schoolpsychnerd's OpinionI love genmaicha. It was one of my go-to drinks in Japan (though at this time of year I would be main-lining mugicha.) because our first night in Tokyo, our hotel gave us free genmaicha. So I was really excited to see it in chocolate but I was disappointed this time. I could occasionally get notes of genmaicha but overall didn't get that earthy flavor that I love. Well, time to go make some genmaicha.You know, maybe we will do that. Enough writing. It's teatime.
