genmai tea ( 玄米茶 ) is a green tea with puffed rice in it. It has a mild, toasted flavor, and I believe it was originally intended to stretch the tea a little.
My grandmother would refuse to drink genmai because “it’s for poor people.”
genmai also occasionally has little popped rice in it… like miniature popcorn, in addition to the puffed rice.
That is, it does unless you live with Diane. It turns out she’s been eating the puffed rice out of the tea, converting it into the more common sencha ( 煎茶 ) by weeding out the non-tea elements of the tea.
“Don’t eat the tea! This is why we can’t have nice things!”