Hojicha Green Tea

A distinctive Japanese roasted green tea from Kagoshima and Saga, with warm chestnut-like aromas, hints of cinnamon, earthy depth, and a remarkably smooth, full-bodied character.

The Experience

Hojicha Green Tea may be one of the most surprising teas in the Japanese green-tea tradition. Unlike the vivid green leaves and fresh vegetal flavors many people associate with Japanese tea, Hojicha is roasted after the initial green-tea processing. The heat transforms the leaves, turning them brown and developing warm aromas reminiscent of roasted chestnuts, toasted grain, gentle cinnamon, and earth.

Our Hojicha is made from Bancha-style tea harvested during the autumn and winter seasons in Kagoshima Prefecture and Saga, Japan. These more mature leaves provide a substantial foundation for roasting and produce a smooth, full-bodied cup with a lingering toasted character.

The ingredient is simply green tea. Everything that tastes roasted, nutty, earthy, or cinnamon-like is created through the tea itself and its processing.

Tasting Notes

Top: Roasted chestnut • Toasted grain
Mid: Gentle cinnamon-like warmth • Earthy notes
Finish: Smooth • Roasted • Lingering
Body: Full

Why You’ll Love It

• Authentic Japanese roasted green-tea style
• Origin: Kagoshima Prefecture & Saga, Japan
• Made from later-season Bancha-style leaf
• Warm roasted character rather than typical grassy green-tea notes
• Naturally chestnut- and cinnamon-like with nothing added
• Full-bodied yet smooth and approachable
• Delicious both hot and iced
• Excellent alongside savory foods
• A fascinating tea for anyone who thinks they don't like green tea

Tea, Origin & Grade

Tea Type: Green Tea
Style: Hojicha / Roasted Japanese Green Tea
Grade: UJI
Origins: Kagoshima Prefecture & Saga, Japan
Elevation: Approximately 0–500 m (~0–1,650 ft)
Harvest: Autumn & winter
Tea Base: Bancha-style leaf
Processing: Non-fermented, traditionally processed, small-batch crafted and roasted
Ingredients: Green tea – Japanese grade
Added Flavoring: None
Caffeine: Caffeinated
Body: Full
Classification: Purist

How to Brew

Use 1 heaping teaspoon with The Perfect Measure Spoon per 8 oz / 237 ml of water at 185°F / 85°C.

Mild: 1–2 minutes
Medium: 2–3 minutes
Strong: 3–5 minutes

For your first cup, we recommend approximately 2–3 minutes. Hojicha's roasted character makes it forgiving and approachable, but using the recommended temperature helps maintain the balance between its toasted aroma, natural sweetness, and earthy tea character.

It is equally worth exploring over ice, where the roasted notes become clean and refreshing rather than heavy.

Perfect For

Hojicha is particularly suited to roasted-coffee lovers exploring tea, Japanese-tea enthusiasts, people who don't enjoy grassy green teas, savory-tea drinkers, cool-weather sipping, or anyone fascinated by how dramatically processing can transform tea. Pair it with rice dishes, sushi, grilled fish, mushrooms, roasted vegetables, noodles, dumplings, sesame desserts, dark chocolate, caramel, chestnut desserts, or lightly sweetened pastries.

How Can a Brown Tea Be Green Tea?

This is one of the most interesting things about Hojicha. Look at the dry leaves, and you might reasonably ask: “Why is this called green tea?”

Tea categories such as green, black, white, and oolong aren't determined simply by the final color of the leaf or liquor. They primarily reflect how the tea leaf is processed, particularly how oxidation is managed.

Hojicha begins as green tea. The leaves are first processed in the Japanese green-tea tradition, including steaming and drying. Only afterward are the dried leaves roasted, transforming their color, aroma, and flavor.

The roasting doesn't turn Hojicha into black tea. Instead, it creates something very different: a roasted expression of green tea. That makes Hojicha an excellent tea for understanding why appearance alone can be misleading when learning about tea.

What Roasting Does to Green Tea

Roasting fundamentally changes the sensory experience. Before roasting, Bancha has the fresh, grassy, vegetal character associated with Japanese green tea.

After roasting, the flavor moves toward toasted grain, roasted nuts, warm earth, and caramelized aromas. And for this tea, a chestnut-like and cinnamon-like notes. Those aromas develop naturally as heat transforms compounds within the tea leaf during roasting.

This makes Hojicha a particularly good tea for learning the difference between ingredients and tasting notes. A skilled tea maker can create flavors through processing that seem almost impossible to reconcile with the simplicity of the ingredient list.

A Japanese Tea Born from Resourcefulness

Hojicha is generally associated with Kyoto in the early 20th century, and the supplied history places its development in the 1920s. Its emergence reflects an important theme that appears repeatedly in tea history: innovation doesn't always begin with rare ingredients or elaborate luxury. Sometimes it begins by finding a new way to use familiar tea.

Roasting later-season green tea created a completely different sensory experience from conventional Japanese green tea—warm, aromatic, smooth, and deeply comforting. What began as an inventive approach to tea became a recognizable Japanese tea style in its own right.

Today, Hojicha demonstrates something central to tea craftsmanship: the value of a tea isn't determined only by how early or tender the leaf is. What a tea maker does with that leaf can be equally important.

What About Caffeine in Hojicha?

Hojicha is frequently described as a lower-caffeine Japanese tea, particularly because it is often produced from more mature Bancha-style leaf and undergoes roasting. However, lower caffeine does not mean caffeine-free, and caffeine levels can vary depending on the leaf material, production, amount of tea used, and preparation. If avoiding caffeine is important to you, choose one of our explicitly caffeine-free herbal or rooibos teas rather than relying on Hojicha as a caffeine-free alternative.

Packaging: Our loose teas are sold by the ounce and packaged in food-grade resealable bags.

Explore Japanese Green Tea Through Heat

Hojicha is one of the most revealing teas to include in a Japanese green-tea tasting.

Start with Bancha to experience a straightforward later-season Japanese green tea. Then taste Hojicha and discover how roasting transforms that foundation into chestnut-like, earthy, toasted flavors.

Compare it with Genmaicha to experience roasted rice rather than roasted tea leaf, or move toward Sencha and Gyokuro to explore increasingly fresh, vegetal, and umami-driven expressions.

Together, they demonstrate something remarkable: Japanese green tea can taste grassy, savory, creamy, umami-rich, nutty, or deeply roasted—and still begin with the same tea plant.

Hojicha Green Tea (This Tea)
Roasted Chestnut • Toasted • Earthy
→ Taste it to understand: what roasting can do to that green-tea foundation

Bancha Green Tea
Grassy • Sweet Pea • Smooth
→ Taste it to understand: the straightforward vegetal character of a later-season Japanese green tea

Genmaicha Green Tea
Toasted Rice • Nutty • Savory
→ Green tea is combined with toasted brown rice