Originally Posted by
PigHog
Traditionally genmaicha is a low grade tea made with bancha. I suspect that what we have from Ippodo is more or less standard.
How you describe the Den's genmaicha sounds more like what I'm used to buying from yuuki-cha and I think that this slightly higher quality sencha-based genmaicha is much nicer. At the end of the day, there'll be low and high quality variations of any tea.
For the record, it sounds like you have matcha-iri (抹茶入り) genmaicha. Which is a nice variation dusted with matcha.
The more I drink ippodo's genmaicha, the less impressed I am. I want to try some matcha from hibiki-an next time, do I might order their genmaicha too, to get free shipping...