Where to buy Hojicha is a question people often ask and with so much confusion out there, we thought we’d put together a short buying guide.
In this article, we’re going to be covering what hojicha is, why you should buy it, where to buy Hojicha and more.
Let’s dive in! 🤎
Where to Buy Hojicha Online?
If you’re interested in learning where to buy Hojicha online you have come to the right place.
After traveling around Japan for the past few years, we have met with dozens of farmers and sampled many different types of hojicha tea.
We have settled on just a small number of premium, organically grown hojicha teas to share with people around the world.
Where to Start
If you are interested in starting with one of the more popular hojicha teas, you can try the Hojicha Noike.
This is a lightly roasted hojicha tea made by the talented farmer Mr. Noike outside Kyoto.
Because the tea is grown in the middle of a pine forest, it receives partial shading throughout the day, making the resulting tea sweeter than a typical hojicha.
Where to Buy Hojicha Like a Pro
If you've been drinking hojicha tea for quite awhile and you really crave these darker, chocolaty flavors, you may want to pick up the kuki hojicha.
This is a dark roasted stem tea made by Mr. Issin in Takachiho and it really takes on a rich an powerful flavor a lot of true hojicha afficionados will appreciate!
The stems help to create a tea thats lower in caffeine and higher in minerals. If you want to learn more about stem tea, you can read our article 👉 Everything You Need to Know About Kukicha
Where to Buy Hojicha at a Store
Now that we've covered where to buy Hojicha, let's talk about where to find it at the store. Hojicha is one of the few teas we talk about that you actually may be able to find in person.
If you have a Japanese grocery store in your local area, chances are there will be a small tea selection. You usually find basic sencha, genmaicha and occasionally a hojicha.
While the sencha sold at these grocery stores is usually poor quality, the hojicha can be decent, so this is not a bad place if you're looking for where to buy Hojicha.
What is Hojicha Exactly?
Now that we've discussed where to buy Hojicha online and in person, let’s also talk about what this tea is.
Hojicha is a unique type of roasted tea from Japan. Although the brown leaves and reddish brown liquor make it seem like a black (oxidized) tea, hojicha is actually a type of green (unoxidized) tea that is roasted to give it a unique flavor, color and aroma.
Why to Buy Hojicha
As important as where to buy Hojicha, is "Why to Buy Hojicha". There are two main reasons - the taste and the health benefits.
A unique roasted taste
As you may know, the flavor of unroasted teas like sencha plays more on these steamed vegetable or grassy notes. This comes from the catechins and polyphenols in the leaf. During the roasting process, the tea leaves lose a lot of these compounds, and they take on warmer notes of coffee, caramel and chocolate.
Some lighter roasted hojicha fall on the sweeter side of the spectrum, with flavors of caramel while the darker roasted hojicha teas like the Kuki Hojicha tend to taste like dark chocolate or black coffee.
If you are interested in learning about other types of teas that taste like coffee, you may enjoy our article 👉 Tea That Tastes Like Coffee
A tea with plenty of health benefits
Like other types of green tea, hojicha is packed with health benefits. One benefit that is unique to hojicha is that it is quite low in caffeine. In addition to being made from the lower caffeine leaves of the tea plant, hojicha also has some of its caffeine removed during the roasting process.
For more information about the benefits or hojicha, you can refer to our full article 👉 Tea Expert Reveals 9 Hojicha Benefits
Brewing instructions
Now that we told you where to buy Hojicha, it’s only fair that we teach you how to brew the hojicha once you get it.
You can prepare this tea by infusing the leaves into hot water, using either a tea strainer or a kyusu teapot.
Make sure you respect the proper brewing time and temperature for the perfect cup of tea!
If you want to become a hojicha expert, you can check out our latest article 👉 How to Brew Hojicha Like a Japanese Tea Master
