Tea time - Genmaicha

So I had the pleasure of getting a sample of Genmaicha from an asian store. This tea is very good for the summer. It is not a pure tea in the sense that its contents include more than just grean tea leaves. The additional content is roasted rice. [source 1]

When I looked into it (btw...im a pretend tea aficionado ;) ) it seems to have two really cool stories of origin.

One being that looooong time ago it was the tea consumed the common man. The reason being that adding roasted rice to the tea would increase the overall 'volume' of the tea and hence make it less expensive to have over a period of time. This is the most frequent story i have come across. [source 1, source 2 ]. That was the story then, but now according to sources, it is coming into trend among Japanese elite. [source 1].

Before I mention about the other story look at the packaging I got. It was almost too pretty to open :)

For the second story of its origin (most interesting...btw) is based on a legend from the 15th century. At that time a servant named Genmai was serving tea to his master. As Genmai was serving the tea, a few rice kernels from his pocket fell into the tea. At that time tea was expensive and a commodity, so naturally as the rice fell into the tea, the master got angry. Since those times people didn't have human rights, poor Genmai was beheaded for his 'crime'. 

Afterwards, the master tasted the 'tainted' tea, and found it delicious! Not to bad for the anger he felt! For this reason this formulation of tea came to be known as Genmaicha (the 'cha' in Genmaicha means tea). [source 3]