Roasted green tea — bancha or kukicha fired at 200°C until brown, low caffeine, caramel-toasted in the cup.
Invented in Kyoto in the 1920s by tea wholesalers looking to use up unsold bancha leaf and stems. Tokiwa-en in Kyoto's Karasuma district is one of several merchants credited with the original roasting drum.
Maruyama-en in Kyoto's Uji and Tsuen Tea House (founded 1160, the oldest tea shop in Japan) both stock kuki-hojicha — stem-only roast — which runs sweeter and lighter than leaf-roasted hojicha.
Reddish-brown liquor, almost the color of weak coffee. Smell: roasted nuts, popcorn, faint tobacco. Flavor is round and warming, no green-tea astringency, low caffeine — the Japanese after-dinner and bedtime tea, often given to children.
200°C drum-roasting for 5-10 minutes converts catechins (the bitter astringent compounds) into pyrazines (roasted nut aroma) and reduces caffeine by about 50% versus the unroasted bancha. Higher roast = darker color, less green character.
Variations
Kyoto leaf-hojicha (Tokiwa-en, Ippodo) is the standard. Kuki-hojicha is stems only, sweeter. Kaga-bocha from Ishikawa roasts first-flush tea stems; the famous 'presented' (kenjo) version was created in 1983 from first-flush Kagoshima stems for Emperor Showa during his stay in the Kaga hot-spring region, and his fondness for it made Kaga-bocha nationally known. Hojicha latte is a 2010s Western export.
On the Palate
Where Hojicha sits in the Japanese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 1How it's made
4 steps · 2 min active + 2 min waiting
- 11 min
Pre-warm teapot.
- 21 min
Use 5 g hojicha per 200 ml; pour 95–100 °C water — hojicha tolerates hot.
- 31 min
Steep 30–45 sec only.
Watch outSteep only 30-45 seconds and pour off — hojicha gives up its roasted-nut aroma fast, and left longer it flattens and turns papery.
- 41 min
Pour out fully; serve hot or chilled.
Watch outEmpty the pot completely each time so no water sits on the leaves — leftover water keeps stewing them and sours the next cup.
