The Other Japanese Tea

Hojicha might be easier than matcha for Americans to love.

We’ve talked about the matcha ‘clean’ girls. We’ve talked about the loaded iced coffee girls. But what’s the next drink fad for the ‘little drink’ economy?

The caffeine beverage market is a crazy space right now, from energy drinks to ‘supercharged’ iced lemonades, but tea has taken on a new functional purpose for the American market. Matcha is the easy example of a caffeinated beverage that’s touted for its health benefits and luxurious prices. But there’s already speculation about what will ride the coattails of the matcha hype.

Will it be Thai tea, the black-tea-based, sugary orange beverage, that is popping up on cafe menus and social media feeds all over? One standout example is Nuar, a new cafe in midtown Manhattan solely dedicated to Thai tea lattes and flavored desserts. Of course, there’s also the everlasting, booming bubble tea market. Yet, in the background, there is another tea rising to the surface of American beverage culture that I think is next on the list.

Hojicha as a loose leaf tea. (Photos: Getty Images)

Hojicha (pronounced hoo-jee-chuh) is also spelled houjicha, which is a more phonetically correct translation from the original Japanese word ほうじ茶 that literally means “roasted tea.” The term loosely refers to any kind of roasted green tea. Matcha is made from steamed sencha, which is the first harvest leaves of a green tea plant. Conversely, bancha refers to older leaves and plant matter from later harvests of the same tea plant. Hojicha is typically a product of roasting bancha.

Bancha matter produces tea with lower caffeine content, mellow flavors, and less of that punchy and delicate sencha profile. Because of the bancha leaves' underwhelming flavor profile, they are roasted, adding a layer of depth with nutty and smoky notes. There are other teas made from later harvest leaves, but hojicha is made special because of its roasty flavor and brown color.

Historically, finding creative ways to use bancha, or any leaves from harvests other than the first one, is an important part of business and agriculture for tea farmers in Japan. Matcha powders and sencha are the luxury products of the harvest, but the bushes continue to produce leaves through the summer season. Different kinds of hojicha can be found all over Japan, from sencha hojicha to kuki hojicha, a variety that uses only the stems and twigs of the plant leaves, each with their own different flavors. But all hojicha varieties are consistently smoky, roasty, and nutty iterations of roasted green tea known for its brown, reddish color.

Hojicha as a superfine powder. (Photos: Getty Images)

Hojicha is most commonly consumed as a loose leaf tea. In the last few years, the new trendy ‘variety’ of hojicha gaining popularity has been in the form of a milled, superfine powder. It’s considered a modern variation on the traditional tea. It whisks into a creamy, chocolate-y, matcha-adjacent consistency, predictably gaining even more traction during the current Western matcha boom. It optimizes the consumption of hojicha for iced and hot lattes, baked goods, and as a flavoring component that consumers find easier to work with than loose leaf tea.

Many people, myself included, suspect hojicha will have a trendy rise into American mainstream relevance. At Japanese cafes in New York, say a spot like Nippon Cha or Kettl, hojicha has been served alongside matcha drinks for years already. This makes it even easier for hojicha to catch on in the same way as matcha has.

Hojicha ice cream and a hot hojicha latte. (Photos: Getty Images)

Hojicha is a lot simpler than matcha. It’s easier to grow tea plants for hojicha, to process and export, and in a lot of ways, it's even easier to consume. It's more accessible in price and resources for farmers, middlemen companies, and customers. We’ve witnessed the matcha shortage drama, brought on partly by an unprecedented demand for matcha combined with a naturally fickle harvest season, and watched prices skyrocket. The Western matcha market is a crowded place full of drop shipping, counterfeit products, and packaging shortages. Unlike coffee- or black-tea-based drinks, there’s a finite amount of global matcha that can be grown, milled, and sold to American consumers.

@s_nuhgooyeni love hojicha lattes so the pale looking ones are embarrassing #hojicha #roastedtea #teapowder #hojichalatte #icedhojicha #match #matchalover #matchalettes #matchatea #matchawhisk #icedmatcha #icedmatchalatte

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Also, I think American palates will take to the flavors of hojicha much easier than matcha. It has a similar mouthfeel to espresso, a sharp, dull bitterness that rounds out mellow sweetness, made naturally to pair with creamy milk and additional sweeteners. Its brown color may remind people of coffee or hot chocolate, which may seem more familiar and comforting when compared to the blaring bright green color of matcha.

Technically it’s still a green tea, so the alluring benefits of antioxidants and ‘health’ are not completely lost on hojicha. The roasting process does cause hojicha’s health benefits to be slightly different from matcha. It’s much less caffeinated but still high in antioxidants. In the world of social media, matcha influencers prepare hojicha lattes to ‘wind down’ and claim it as a ‘relaxing’ alternative nighttime drink that still allows them to add crazy cold foams and syrups.

I’ve been a fan of hojicha for a year or so after trying it in an iced maple hojicha latte at Land to Sea in Brooklyn. I’ve never purchased a tin of that superfine hojicha powder in the way I do for matcha, but I have some loose leaf hojicha at home.

The world of Japanese tea is ancient and vast, but its importance in American drink culture has been an interesting rise to watch. Will hojicha catch on in the same way as matcha did? Or will it stay in the background of cafe menus and Instagram Reels for now? We’ll have to wait and see.