Houjicha (with latte recipe!) | Japan's Cozy Roasted Tea

Today I'm going to talk about Japan's most popular roasted tea, hojicha. You might see this next to a matcha latte at your local cafe, and if you haven't yet, I bet you'll be seeing it soon. This is a big trend in Japan and South Korea, and one that's slowly making its way to the West. I'll go over what hojicha is, how to brew it, and how to make a hojicha latte. Let's get started. Hojicha simply means roasted tea. The roasted part is pretty straightforward. Like coffee, you can have a light-roasted hojicha, which has more original characteristics of the tea, or a dark-roast hojicha, which tastes more...roasty. The tea part, on the other hand, is a little bit more complex. First and foremost, hojicha, despite its brown colour, is in fact a green tea, as it is made from unoxidised tea leaves. Generally speaking, most hojicha is made from the leaves, stems, and twigs of tea leaves harvested in the second and third pickings of the year, which happen usually around late spring to summer. Compared to the leaves picked in the first harvest, which are used for high-quality teas like sencha, gyokuro, or matcha, these leaves tend to be more bitter and astringent, and also have lower levels of sweetness, or umami. To make these lower-quality leaves and stems, generally called bancha, more drinkable and enjoyable, roasting them helps attenuate some of these bitter and astringent flavours, while also bringing out a wonderful aroma. While most hojicha on the market is made from this lower-grade bancha, you can actually make hojicha from any type of green tea, including sencha, gyokuro, or even tencha, the base material for matcha. During the roasting process, a few chemical reactions are responsible for the creation of the signature hojicha aroma, among those being the maya reactions, which you are familiar with in any browned or toasted food, but also the creation of pyrazine. Pyrazine is the aromatic compound that is most responsible for this signature aroma. It is commonly said that roasting tea can lower the levels of caffeine in it, but if anyone's had coffee before, and knows that coffee is a roasted drink that has a lot of caffeine in it, you know that this doesn't make much sense. What's actually going on is a little more complicated. When people say that hojicha has lower levels of caffeine than, say, sencha, this is mostly because the base material, namely these later-harvest twigs, stems, and leaves, is already lower in caffeine than first-harvest sencha. Hojicha that is made from this first-harvest sencha will still have comparable levels of caffeine. So in fact, it is not the hoji, or roasted, part that is responsible, but rather the cha, or tea, part. So with the science and definitions out of the way, let's get brewing. Today I'll be brewing zancho. This is a hojicha made by Azuma Chae-en, using first-flush sencha leaves rather than the later-flush bancha. This means it still has a fair bit of caffeine. Which I'll then give in a relatively strong roast, bringing out a deep, full-bodied tea. To bring out the best flavour from hojicha, we'll need to tweak a few parameters from our regular sencha brewing. First, I'll be using a higher temperature, anywhere between 95C and boiling. This will help extract a lot of that smoky, toasty, roasty aroma that hojicha is known for. To balance out this higher brewing temperature, I'll use a lower leaf-to-water ratio of around 4g of tea to 200ml of water. And lastly, I'll steep for a shorter brewing time, somewhere between 30 seconds and a minute, depending on how strong you want your tea. As always, my first step is to heat my water, and preheat my teaware. Today I'm using a purple hagiaki kyusu made by Tsubaki Hide Kiln, and an ao-oribe yunomi made by Kato Hiroshige of Kasen Kiln. This one is decorated with a traditional motif called madozuru, of a vine piercing through a window, which symbolises prosperity and longevity. Because you'll be using really hot water, preheating your teaware is vital, as the cold teaware can sap temperature out of the hot water. Now that your teaware is nice and heated, you'll need to weigh out your tea leaves. As I said, you'll need 4g of tea. I like to take this moment to give the dry leaves a good sniff. Roasty. Now you'll also need to measure your water, but I know that this cup holds 200ml of water, so I can use that as a measuring cup, especially now that I've preheated it. This means I'll end up with the exact amount of tea to fill this cup. Now that our tea is ready, it's time to enjoy. Itadakimasu. So one of the unique qualities of hojicho that's made from first flush leaves, or leaves in general instead of stems, is that it has a much more full-bodied and thick flavour. Hojicho that's made from just stems tends to be a little lighter and milder. After the texture, the first thing you really notice is the aroma. It's that classic roasted hojicho aroma. If you know it, you know it. Unlike sencha's more delicate and refined flavour, hojicho is a little more robust, which makes it great for pairing with foods. I don't have any foods to pair it with. Like any good loose leaf tea, you can get a few infusions out of this. Just make sure that for each subsequent steep, you brew it for a little bit longer to extract more flavour. As I mentioned in the beginning of the video, hojicho lattes are an increasingly popular drink and while you can make it by using an incredibly concentrated brew of the loose leaf form of hojicho, it's much easier to use powdered hojicho. Powdered hojicho is simply loose leaf hojicho, but powdered. Unlike matcha, which is usually ground in a high quality stone mill, hojicho powder is typically made using an industrial ball mill, meaning it's not designed to be drunk straight as usucha, like you would with matcha, but it is more designed to be used in drinks or baking. And a hojicho latte is the perfect example. I'd make a hojicho latte the same way I'd make a matcha latte, using 4g of tea to 40ml of hot water. Mixing this into a thick paste, I'd pour this into my mug and top it with 6oz of seamed milk. If you want to see a full breakdown on the recipe and techniques that go into making a tea latte, check out my video on matcha lattes over here. And now that you've made it, the roasted flavour of hojicho pairs really well with the creaminess It's a completely different flavour profile to your regular matcha latte, so if you don't like a matcha latte, but you still want a tea-favoured milk drink, give this a try. If you haven't had hojicho before, I hope this video encourages you to give it a try. If you enjoyed this video, hit like and subscribe to our channel to see more tea videos. As always, I'll leave links to the tea and teaware I use in the video in the description down below. Thank you very much for watching, and have a nice day. Tea!