Kuki hojicha

Where it grows

Country is the honest level — Japan is the level this record can honestly claim. The same roast applied to the stem fraction, which is doubly removed from any one district — a by-product of refining, pooled, then roasted.

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. Steaming (Japanese fixation) — Denatures polyphenol oxidase using saturated steam, arresting oxidation without applying dry contact heat to the leaf surface.
2. 2. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.
3. 3. De-stemming and de-veining — Separates leaf blade from stem and coarse vein, standardising the material that goes into the finished tea.
4. 4. 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: Free amino acids, Melanoidins, Pyrazines.

• Steaming (Japanese fixation)
  • creates Dimethyl sulfide
  • lowers Green-leaf volatiles
  • locks Chlorophyll
  • locks EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate)
• Drying
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • raises Beta-damascenone
  • raises Thearubigins
• De-stemming and de-veining
  • raises L-theanine
  • lowers Caffeine
  • lowers Strecker aldehydes
  • lowers Tea saponins
• 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

Stem hojicha became the dominant form in Japan because it uses the kukicha fraction that sencha production already produces, making it the cheapest possible use of an existing by-product.

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

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.

• 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

Journeys featuring this tea

• I like coffee — A coffee drinker who finds most tea thin and wants something with body and roast.

Guides covering this tea

• Old leaf, stem and stalk: the parts of the plant that are not the bud