About the Japan Hojicha Association
To share the roasting and care behind hojicha, and bring more pleasure to choosing an everyday tea.
Not scorching the leaf. Waking the aroma.
I like hojicha. I liked it enough to start an association.
Behind a cup of hojicha are the choices made by its producers: stems or leaves, growing areas and roasting methods. We want to share these differences and ways to enjoy the tea, alongside the words of the people who make it.
What we want to pass on is not difficult etiquette. It is the pleasure of smelling, drinking, and being able to say 'today's is a little deeper'. Because this is a tea that children and older people have drunk at the same table, anyone can stand at the entrance.
The Japan Hojicha Association wants to grow the number of people who can talk about hojicha starting from the roast, to find shops across the country where hojicha takes the lead, and to collect the words of the people who make it. Look something up in the encyclopedia, play with the quiz, take the map and go to a shop. If that cup tastes a little more toasted than usual, then we have done our job.
Representative, Japan Hojicha Association
What difference does the roast make?
Roasting changes the words makers use to describe their tea. Marukyu Koyamaen says it gives its higher-grade hojicha a lighter roast to bring out the tea’s clean, original flavour, while roasting other grades more deeply to emphasise mellow toastiness. Maruhachi Seichajo describes lightly roasting good stems through to the core, leaving them plump, for a toasty aroma and clear taste. Read alongside each maker’s product description, “light” and “deep” become useful clues when choosing a tea.
Sources: Marukyu Koyamaen, blog post on its hojicha; Maruhachi Seichajo, product page for Kenjo Kaga Bōcha (60 g bag).
Where does that toasty aroma come from?
Several compounds formed during roasting contribute to the toasty aroma. A report in the Journal of the Agricultural Chemical Society of Japan found that Maillard reaction products formed from sugars and amino acids made up the main part of the aroma in hojicha and kamairi-cha and produced their roasted notes. It named pyrazines, pyrroles, furans and pyranones. A report in the Journal of the Japanese Society of Food Science and Technology also found that roasting produced pyrazines, furans and pyrroles. NARO, the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, reports that roasting makes twenty components strongly influential in aroma. These findings apply within each study’s conditions. Together, they describe an aroma formed by a combination of compounds.
Sources: Journal of the Agricultural Chemical Society of Japan, on aroma formation in roasting and pan-firing; Journal of the Japanese Society of Food Science and Technology (J-STAGE abstract); NARO, on aroma-contributing components in roasted tea.
Does hojicha contain caffeine?
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries lists hojicha infusion at 20 mg per 100 mL, using 15 g of tea, 650 mL of water at 90°C, and 0.5 minutes. The value comes from the Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan 2020 (eighth revised edition). MEXT, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, lists the same brewing conditions for food number 16040 in its Food Composition Database. Its entry gives caffeine as 0.02 g per 100 g of edible portion. The Food Safety Commission of Japan says no acceptable daily intake (ADI) has been set, partly because sensitivity varies so much between individuals. For decisions about how much to drink, please consult official guidance.
Sources: Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, page on caffeine; MEXT Food Composition Database, hojicha infusion (food number 16040); Food Safety Commission of Japan, e-magazine (December 2018).
When did hojicha begin?
Kyoto and Kaga each have an account of their tea’s history. Yamamotoyama writes that tea merchants in Kyoto Prefecture’s Yamashiro area are said to have devised hojicha to use unsold stock from the end of the Taisho era into the early Showa era. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries tells the regional story of Kaga bōcha: in Meiji 35, Kanazawa tea merchant Hayashiya Shinbei developed a use for stems left over from drying tea leaves, roasting them to sell as Kaga bōcha. One account concerns hojicha’s invention in Kyoto; the other, the beginnings of Kaga bōcha. Each belongs to the history of tea in its own place.
Sources: Yamamotoyama, column on hojicha; Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 'Kaga bōcha' in its encyclopedia of traditional Japanese foods.
