Unique Tea Powders: Genmaicha Cracker Recipe

I already touched a bit on unusual culinary tea powders in one of my previous posts. I had been dreaming up uses for these precious samples I bought a while ago, and I decided the genmaicha powder would be especially good in a more savory option. What is genmaicha? It’s a green tea from Japan that also has the addition of roasted rice, giving it a comforting toasty nutty aroma and flavor. It’s not quite as grassy or vegetative as some other greens from Japan and is generally made from a lower grade or late harvest tea such as bancha. This was a tea that was created for economical reasons, meaning it made it stretch further with the addition of rice. It is at times called popcorn tea because there are sometimes pieces of popped rice that resemble popcorn. You can even find some genmaicha with matcha added which gives the tea a fuller flavor and mouthfeel as well as make it appear much greener. Genmaicha is now a very popular and still very economical tea choice in and out of Japan. It brings me extra comfort in the deep freeze of a Minnesotan winter.

What makes genmaicha powder so special if the regular tea is so humble and widely available? Put simply, I hadn’t seen genmaicha as a powder until I found this one. Granted, I bought it straight from a Japanese company, so it may be more common in Japan than I realize. Sadly, I only got the sample size. I had just a mere 10 grams to work with, so I wanted to make something I was fairly certain would work flavor wise. I wanted to do something that wasn’t a drink. I love to bake and have been getting more into bread, crackers, and cakes. The warm toasty and nutty characteristics of genmaicha beckoned to be turned into crackers!

Admittedly, I haven’t made my own cracker recipe before. I’m relatively confident in the kitchen if I’m just improvising a dinner, but baking really requires a sound understanding of ingredients and measurements. I knew I had to look at some other cracker recipes just to get a decent grip on the basic amounts I may want to work with. I’m very happy with the results overall. I can appreciate that genmaicha powder isn’t easy to come by, and I don’t recommend you make your own…so I think this recipe would work splendidly with other tea powders as well such as hojicha and of course matcha. Without further ado, this is the basic recipe I came up with for genmaicha crackers. Enjoy!

Genmaicha Crackers

• 2 cups AP flour
• 10 grams genmaicha or matcha
• 1 tsp. toasted sesame seeds
• 1 tsp. kosher salt (plus more for garnish)
• 1/4 cup semi-softened butter
• 1/2 cup of water (add more if needed by the tbsp.)
• 1/2 tbsp. honey

Preheat oven to 400 F. Mix all dry ingredients in a medium bowl with a whisk. Add the butter in with a pastry cutter until it resembles sand. Add honey and mix with a wooden spoon. Add water gradually and mix with spoon and then hands until a cohesive dough is formed. If needed, add more water by the tbsp. (I added about 2 more tablespoons, but it was slightly too much). Form into a smooth ball. Lightly flour a clean work space and flatten ball into a disk and cover with plastic wrap. Let rest in the fridge for about 30 min. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Cut the dough in half and roll out as thin as possible. Crackers will puff up in the oven. When you reach the desired thinness, place the dough half on one baking sheet. Cut in rough square or rectangle pieces with a pizza cutter. Poke each cracker a few times with a fork or skewer and sprinkle with kosher salt. Repeat process with second dough half. Place both sheets in the oven for 5 min. Rotate the sheets and bake for at least another 8-10 min. If some appear to brown sooner than others, remove so they don’t burn. Take out of oven and let cool on baking sheets on top of a wire rack. Enjoy plain or with some cream cheese!

There you have it. My first original cracker recipe. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. I think some could have been crispier, but overall the flavor is awesome. If you enjoy toasty and nutty flavors with just a hint of salt, you will love these. The tea flavor itself is there but it’s very subtle. I also enjoy the olive green shade of these crackers.

As mentioned, I think it could be a lot of fun to experiment and try this recipe with other tea powders. I would love to hear what you think! Do you want to try this? What would you have done differently? Have you tried genmaicha before? What tea would you pair these with? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely cup of tea with some snacks 🙂