Loquat leaf
The large, leathery, rust-backed leaf of the loquat tree, brewed in Japan as biwa-cha and in southern China. The underside fuzz is scraped or brushed off before drying, which is the one preparation step everybody who uses it knows.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Eriobotrya japonica
- Family
- Rosaceae
- Part used
- Leaf
- Origin
- Hubei and Sichuan in China, and Japan
- Drunk in
- Nagasaki, Chiba, Guangdong
Character
Roasted material is nutty and rounded with a faint almond note; unroasted is greener and flatter. Neither tastes of loquat fruit.
Notes: toast, hay, almond
History
Loquat reached Japan from China early and became a common garden and orchard tree in the warmer prefectures. Nagasaki and Chiba are the fruit-growing centres and are also where the leaf drink is most established.
How it is drunk
Drunk in southwestern Japan and in Guangdong, made domestically from garden trees more often than bought. It is roasted in some Japanese preparations, which changes the character substantially.
Production
Mature leaves are wiped clear of the dense brown hairs on the underside, cut into strips and dried, and often roasted afterwards. Unbrushed leaf makes a fuzzy, irritating cup, which is why the step survives.
Preparation
Infusion · Decoction
Herbal infusion (tisane)
1–2 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 7 min
Category-typical practice rather than a measurement for this specific botanical. Most infusions are far more tolerant of a long steep than tea is.
What gets confused
Whether the leaf has been roasted is the biggest variable and is often unlabelled. Roasted biwa-cha and plain dried leaf are quite different drinks.
Common mistakes
- Brewing whole unbrushed leaves. The underside hairs come off into the cup.
Related botanicals
- Mugicha — Roasted, nutty and toasty, and both are drunk hot in winter and cold in summer in the same parts of Japan.
Comparisons
- Persimmon leaf vs loquat leaf — Two Japanese orchard-leaf drinks, both by-products of fruit growing and both regional rather than national. One is steamed like a green tea; the other is usually roasted, which makes it a different sort of drink.
Evidence for this page
The botanical name, family and distribution above are checked against an external authority. Eriobotrya japonica (Thunb.) Lindl. — GRIN-Global Taxonomy record— retrieved and read, not countersigned by a named human. That source covers naming and distribution only. Everything else on this page — history, culture, production, flavour, preparation and buying advice — is TeaHQ’s own synthesis with no external source behind it.
Brewing parameters here are typical practice for the category rather than measurements of this plant, and each set says so.
This page makes no safety claim. It describes what Loquat leaf is, where it comes from and how it is prepared — not what it does to a person. The absence of a safety note here is not a statement that the plant is safe. How TeaHQ handles this.