Hojicha Organic Green
This is one of the most intriguing teas I sell, and one of my favourites to explain. Hojicha is a roasted green tea from Japan, and if you have ever wandered through the markets of Kyoto, as I was lucky enough to do, you will know it before you can name it: the air carries this wonderful warm, toasty aroma, because the tea merchants are often roasting fresh batches right there.
That roasting is the whole story. It starts life as a green tea, a bancha (a later-picked, everyday Japanese green) grown organically in Kagoshima, at the southern tip of Japan. Traditionally it is then roasted, which transforms it completely: the grassy, vegetal edge of a green tea mellows away, and in its place come warm notes of roasted nuts, a gentle caramel sweetness and a reddish-brown cup that looks more like a light black tea than a green.
Which raises a fair question, and one tea people love to argue about: is it really still a green tea? Technically, yes, it is never oxidised, so it stays in the green camp. But it tastes so unlike a typical green, more like a roasted tea, that plenty of people place it closer to a light oolong. My advice is simply to try it and make up your own mind.
One genuinely useful thing: because roasting drives off some of the caffeine, hojicha is naturally lower in caffeine than most teas, which makes it a lovely one for the evening, or after a meal, when it is wonderfully palate-cleansing. It is organic, loose-leaf, and endlessly forgiving to brew.
Unlike most green teas, it is happy with hotter water; brew at around 95°C for a short minute, and do try it again, as the later infusions turn sweeter. It is good hot or cold, and best without milk.
Ingredients || Organic Green Tea
Warning, packed in an environment that contains nuts
Caffeine || Yes, but naturally low (the roasting reduces it)
Tasting Notes || Warm and toasty, with roasted nuts and a gentle caramel sweetness
Brewing Notes || 1 full tsp per cup and brew at 95°C for 1 minute (lovely re-brewed; good hot or cold).