toasted brown rice

Genmai-cha, the tea you're referring to, is generally inexpensive. Is your friend buying boutique tea in fancy containers?

--crymad

Heather wrote:

Some Japanese groceries sell the roasted rice separately so you can add it to your own green tea.

-sew

This one of the cheapest Japanese Tea you can buy. It's called Genmai-cha.

Add some Rice Crispies in a Sencha (regular Japanese Green Tea) and you'll get almost the same thing :-)

I've never come across this. Where did you see it? Are you sure you're not confusing it with roasted barley grains for making mugi-cha?

--crymad

Most of the Asian groceries in the Sunset neighborhood of SF sell roasted rice or barley grains separately as well as the standard tea mixes.

I found a couple Japanese online sellers for this as well. An interesting discovery.

--crymad

Nijiya market, Mountain View, California.

I'm sure it was rice, some of the grains even had the "popcorn" like appearance.

Mugi-cha is my household choice for warm weather no-caffeine drinking so I recognize difference between the two roasted grains (even though use tea bags when making mugi-cha).

-sew