When I was in Korea, we stopped by the 7-eleven near the hotel pretty often. I kept looking at the tea section (as I do in many stores) and eventually, decided to try a 7-eleven brand tea because… I was just curious about how good it could be.

The Difference between Brown Rice Green Tea and Genmaicha

But first, I had a question: What is the difference between this brown rice green tea (hyeonmi-nokcha in Korean) and Genmaicha? It took a bit of googling but I think the answer is in how the rice is treated. From what I can find, in Brown Rice Green Tea (which in Japanese is 玄米緑茶, one character more than 玄米茶/genmaicha), the rice is washed and then roasted till golden. In genmaicha, the rice is steamed and then roasted. That’s pretty much it – the tea seems to be the same, since both Japan and Korea steam their green tea.

Tasting Notes

The tea here is a very light green colour that has the scent of toasted rice. Although the way the rice is roasted is different, the tea still tastes very similar to a genmaicha. It’s naturally sweet and the roasted rice notes are slightly stronger than the green tea notes. When I used a longer steep, I noticed that the roasted note got deeper and there was a slight bitterness involved; this version reminded me a little of mugicha.

I found this to be a straightforward and easy-to-drink tea! It goes pretty well with cookies and other sweet snacks too.