Hojicha

Where it grows

Country is the honest level — Japan is the level this record can honestly claim. Defined by a roast applied to whatever Japanese green tea is available, usually a late-season bancha. The roast is the identity; the field is not.

How it is made, in order

Read top to bottom: the list is the production sequence, and the sequence is what makes this tea its category rather than a neighbouring one. The same leaf from the same bush becomes a green tea or a black tea depending on where the heat falls relative to the bruising, so reordering these steps would not vary the tea — it would produce a different one.

1. 1. Kill-green (fixation) — Denatures polyphenol oxidase and related enzymes, arresting enzymatic oxidation.
2. 2. Rolling and shaping — Ruptures cell walls to expose leaf juices, and forms the leaf into the shape it will hold through drying and storage.
3. 3. Roasting — Drives off residual moisture and drives thermal reactions in the finished leaf, deepening colour and building toasted aromatics.

The route it is made by

The steps above are what happens; this is the named production route they belong to, with the other teas made the same way.

• Hojicha — The Japanese steamed green route, taken as far as refining, and then a final firing pushed so far past its usual point that it stops producing a green tea at all.

  Where it is practised: Throughout Japan, and it is one of the few tea styles whose origin story is a commercial one — a use for material the fine-tea trade valued least, which is now sold in its own right.

What its chemistry turns on

Every true tea contains caffeine, catechins and amino acids, so listing them would say nothing about this one. What differs is what the processing above does to them — and that is the same list of steps, read for its chemistry instead of its craft.

The compounds that substantially decide what this tea is: Caffeine, Epimerised catechins, Melanoidins, Pheophytin, Pyrazines, Soluble sugars, Strecker aldehydes.

• Kill-green (fixation)
  • locks 2-Phenylethanol
  • locks Anthocyanins
  • locks Catechins
  • locks cis-3-Hexenol
  • locks Green-leaf volatiles
  • locks L-theanine
  • locks Leaf lipids
  • locks Methylated catechins
  • locks Theogallin
• Rolling and shaping
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • creates Theaflavins
  • raises Pectins
• Roasting
  • converts Free amino acids
  • converts L-theanine
  • converts Soluble sugars
  • creates Pyrazines
  • raises Beta-ionone
  • lowers Glutamic acid

These are statements about the leaf and the cup. What any of these compounds does in a body is a different kind of question and is not answered here or on the pages linked from it.

History

Created in Kyoto in the 1920s, reportedly by a merchant roasting unsold stock rather than discarding it. It is one of the few famous teas whose origin is an act of thrift, and it turned a low-value harvest into a category of its own.

TeaHQ synthesis — TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.

Brewing

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1.5–2.5 g/100 ml · 90–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Kyusu brewing (Japanese style)

  3–5 g/100 ml · 80–90 °C · 3 authored infusions

  Needs: Kyusu

  Open in the brew assistant

• Gongfu brewing (gaiwan)

  3–4 g/100 ml · 75–85 °C · 4 authored infusions

  Needs: Gaiwan

  Open in the brew assistant

• Cold brew tea

  2–3 g/100 ml · 3–8 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Glass teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Tea bag brewing

  1–1.8 g/100 ml · 85–95 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

Vessels this tea suits

Recorded against the tea rather than against a brewing style, because the vessel does not always follow from the method — a whisk needs lateral room whatever the schedule says, and compressed leaf needs a pick before any method applies at all.

• Dobin — Roasted and coarse teas want volume and near-boiling water, which is what the larger pot is for.
• Boiling teapot — A roasted tea that takes a simmer without turning bitter, which is why it is served hot by the jug.

Common mistakes

• Using cool water as one would for sencha, which leaves it thin and papery
• Assuming the brown colour means it is oxidised

When the cup goes wrong

Written against green tea as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 37 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• I bought a big bag to save money and it was stale before I finished it — A large quantity bought at a good unit price faded well before it was drunk, so the saving turned into waste.
• I bought a water filter for my tea and it changed nothing — A filter jug or tap filter was bought specifically to improve the tea, and the cup tastes the same as it did before — with the same dullness, the same film and the same scale in the kettle.
• I have too many teas open and most of them are going stale — A dozen or more packets are open at once, three or four get drunk regularly, and the rest fade quietly on the shelf until they are thrown away.
• Leaves stick to the cup, the pot and my teeth — Fine leaf clings to the inside of the vessel, comes through into the cup, and ends up in the last mouthful.
• My bamboo whisk is losing tines — Fine bamboo tines snap off during whisking and turn up in the bowl, and the whisk feels stiff and splayed.
• My cold brew tastes like faintly flavoured water — After a night in the fridge the jug is pale and tastes of very little, with none of the sweetness cold brewing is supposed to give.

Every diagnosed brewing problem

If you like this

Grouped by why they were suggested, strongest reason first. Nothing here is a blended score — a suggestion appears under the best reason that exists for it, and never under a weaker one as well.

Compare this tea with another

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison. Each one is a written page with the points of difference argued out.

• Best teas for beginners, compared — Four teas chosen for one property only: they are hard to brew badly. This compares them on how forgiving they are, not on which is best — and makes no claim about anything other than flavour and technique. Put the two side by side
• Green tea styles compared — Five green teas spanning steamed and pan-fired, shaded and unshaded, roasted and fresh. The fixation method splits this category more than any origin does. Put the two side by side
• Hojicha vs Bancha — Hojicha is made from bancha, so they are not alternatives so much as before and after. Roasting is the only step between them and it changes almost everything. Put the two side by side
• Hojicha vs black tea — Hojicha is brown, toasty and low in caffeine, which leads almost everyone who meets it to file it as a black tea. It is a roasted green tea and the distinction matters. Put the two side by side
• Hojicha vs genmaicha — Two toasty Japanese green teas sold side by side, whose toastiness comes from entirely different places. One is roasted after processing; the other has roasted rice blended into unroasted leaf, and the distinction changes what each is good for. Put the two side by side
• Hojicha vs genmaicha: which to start with — Both are recommended to newcomers for the same reason and they solve different problems. Choosing between them depends on what put you off green tea. Put the two side by side
• Kukicha vs hojicha — Two low-caffeine Japanese teas often recommended for the same reasons, made from different parts of the plant by different means. Put the two side by side
• Leaf hojicha vs stem hojicha — The hojicha most people in Japan drink and the hojicha most people outside Japan have tasted are made from different parts of the plant, and the exported one is the sharper of the two. Put the two side by side
• Matcha vs hojicha — Two Japanese green teas at opposite ends of everything: one shaded and milled, the other roasted from the coarsest leaf. They are the strongest and gentlest things in the Japanese range. Put the two side by side
• What should my first loose leaf tea be? — Four candidates and the case for each, judged on how hard they are to get wrong rather than on how impressive they are. Both cost little and both are near-impossible to ruin, which matters more than either being impressive. Put the two side by side

Where this tea is drunk

Documented practices that name this tea. Each page describes what is done and by whom, and separates what is recorded from what is repeated.

• Everyday Japanese tea — What tea actually is in Japan for almost everybody — free with a meal, bought cold in a bottle, made by the litre in a jug at home — and how far that is from the practice foreign readers have been taught to think of as Japanese tea.
• Sweets with tea, and matcha as a flavour — Why a bitter bowl of tea is served with something intensely sweet, how the sweet is chosen for the season, and how matcha travelled out of the tea room to become a flavour on everything from ice cream to a chocolate bar.

Journeys featuring this tea

• Moving beyond tea bags — Someone comfortable with loose black tea who has never tried the other categories.
• Exploring green tea — Someone who wants to understand green tea rather than tolerate it.
• Understanding tea families — Someone who has heard there are six kinds of tea and wants to know what actually separates them.
• Building a home tea setup — Someone who wants to buy equipment in the order that actually improves the cup.
• I like coffee — A coffee drinker who finds most tea thin and wants something with body and roast.
• Learning to taste tea — Someone who can tell they like one tea more than another and cannot say why, and would like to be able to.

Guides covering this tea

• Why roasted teas taste nutty
• Choosing your first tea
• From green tea beginner to enthusiast
• Firing, roasting and baking: what heat makes that was not there before
• Energy and fuel in tea processing
• Honey, malt, caramel and dried fruit: the sweet aroma families
• Roasted, nutty, chestnut and cocoa: the aromas heat makes