What Does Hojicha Taste Like?

2 min reading time

Hojicha, pronounced HO-GEE-CHA is a roasted Japanese green tea. Although hojicha can be made from different types of green tea, ours is made from a Japanese green tea called sencha, which is roasted and ground into a fine powder, similar to our matcha.

So what does it taste like?

Unlike matcha, which has a creamy vegetal taste, the roasting process to create hojicha leaves behind a rich nutty undertone with smooth, roasted chocolatey flavor, without any bitterness. Depending on how it's prepared, you might pick up on different flavors. For example, when hojicha is prepared with lower/cold temperatures, it's easier to taste the rich chocolate notes. When hojicha is prepared with higher/hot temperature, the roasted notes are much more prominent, and it has a richer aromatic experience.

HOJICHA PREPARATION

While hojicha is often sold in loose-tea form, 3 Leaf Tea sells hojicha in a powder form. Loose teas need to be brewed and afterwards, the leaves are discarded. Powdered hojicha is ready to drink almost instantly and there is no waste.

Preparing hojicha is very similar to preparing matcha. The standard latte method is to simply add 1 tsp of powder and 8 oz. of hot water or milk then stir or whisk vigorously. Since hojicha is roasted, it won’t easily be damaged by high heat like matcha is but using boiling water should be avoided. Besides hot lattes, hojicha is also delicious served cold over ice. It is also excellent sprinkled over vanilla ice cream and on honey toast. Both matcha and hojicha start from green tea leaves, so any recipes you use with matcha could very well work with hojicha too.