Hojicha, explained: Japan's roasted green tea

Hojicha is a Japanese green tea that has been roasted after it was made, and the roast changes almost everything about it. The leaf goes from green to reddish brown, the cup brews amber instead of pale green, and the grassy edge of a sencha gives way to something toasty, nutty and soft. It is still green tea in the botanical sense, but it drinks like a different family, which is why it is the Japanese tea people reach for when the weather turns. In our catalog, Hojicha brews at 95°C for 45 seconds with 3 g per cup, and it sits on level 1 of our 0–3 caffeine scale.

What hojicha is made from

Most hojicha does not start from the young spring leaf that goes into fine sencha. The usual base is bancha, the larger, later-harvest leaf that Japan drinks every day, often mixed with stems and twigs, the material that on its own is sold as kukicha. Some producers roast sencha, and a few premium houses roast higher grades, but the everyday cup is built on the humble parts of the harvest. That base is the main reason hojicha is low in caffeine: mature leaves and stems carry less of it than the tender buds, and the roast itself only takes a little more away. Look at the packet and you will often see which one you have. Leaf hojicha brews fuller and sweeter; stem hojicha, sometimes labeled kuki-hojicha, is lighter and more fragrant.

Why roasting turns a green tea into a brown one

Japanese green teas are normally steamed and dried and then left alone, which is what keeps them green and vegetal. Hojicha takes one more step: the finished, dry leaf goes into a drum, a pan or a porcelain roaster over strong heat, and it is pulled once it turns reddish brown and smells of toast and caramel. The roasting is the whole character of the tea. It rounds off the bitterness, darkens the leaf and the liquor, and replaces the fresh green notes with the three that our catalog records for it: toasty, nutty and mellow. Because those aromas fade with time, freshly roasted hojicha is at its best, which is why some Japanese tea shops roast it at the counter.

A tea born from leftovers

Hojicha is one of the younger classic Japanese teas. The story most sources tell places its start in Kyoto in the 1920s, when tea merchants began roasting leaf and stems they could not sell, rather than throwing them away. Whether or not one merchant did it first, the idea stuck: a cheap base became a tea with its own following, and it spread across Japan as an everyday cup served with meals. Kyoto is still the city most associated with it. Our Japan origin page puts hojicha in context with sencha, matcha and the rest of the country's teas.

How to brew hojicha at home

Forget the cool water that sencha needs. Hojicha is already roasted, so there is nothing delicate left to scald: our catalog settings are 95°C, 45 seconds and 3 g per cup, which is almost boiling water and a short steep. The leaf is bulky, so 3 g looks like a lot in the spoon. Pour it off at 45 seconds, then steep the same leaf again for a second cup; roasted teas give a good second infusion. If you like it bolder, add leaf rather than time. For comparison, genmaicha, the other toasty Japanese green, uses 80°C and 2 minutes, and roasted barley tea, which contains no tea leaf at all, takes boiling water for 5 minutes and sits at zero on the caffeine scale.

Iced, as a latte, or roasted fresh

Hojicha works cold as well as hot. Brew it double strength and pour it over ice, or try our iced hojicha oat-maple latte. Hojicha is also sold as a fine powder, like matcha, which is what most cafés use for hojicha lattes; you can whisk it the same way, and our matcha latte guide covers the milk side. The most satisfying version, though, is one you roast yourself. Japanese homes traditionally used a houroku, a small clay roaster with a hollow handle: you put a spoonful of bancha or kukicha in it, hold it over medium-low heat and keep shaking for a minute or two until the leaf browns and the kitchen smells of toasted grain. A dry frying pan works the same way. Then brew it straight away.

Where hojicha fits in your day

Hojicha is on level 1 of our caffeine ladder, well below sencha at level 2 and matcha at level 3. Our catalog lists it for the afternoon, the evening and after a meal, which matches how it is drunk in Japan: a cup that goes with dinner rather than one that starts the morning. That makes it a natural place to start if you want real tea later in the day, and our list of low-caffeine teas for the afternoon puts it next to the other options on the same shelf.