Prices collected 25–26 August 2026 from fifteen sellers’ own listings.
Hojicha is green tea that has been roasted. That one step changes everything: the leaf turns brown, the cup turns amber, the grassiness becomes toast and caramel, and much of the caffeine burns off.
It is also the most forgiving Japanese tea to brew. Boiling water will not ruin it.
What to buy
| Shop | Price | Per cup | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best value | Ippodo (US) | $0.16 a gram | $0.48 |
| Also cheap | Hojicha Co. | $0.20 a gram | $0.60 |
| Tezumi | $0.22 a gram | $0.66 | |
| Premium | Kettl | $0.51 a gram | $1.52 |
| Art of Tea | $0.73 a gram | $2.19 |
A cup uses about 3 g. The gap between the cheapest and dearest shop here is more than four times — far bigger than any difference in the tea itself.
Buy the big bag. Bags over 200 g work out at about half the price per gram of small retail bags. Hojicha is roasted, so it keeps better than green tea does.
How to brew it
- Water: 90°C, or straight off the boil. Unlike sencha or gyokuro, hot water is what you want — it pulls out the roast.
- Leaf: about 3 g per cup.
- Time: 30–60 seconds.
- Re-steep it two or three times.
This is the Japanese tea you can make carelessly and still enjoy. If you have been put off green tea by bitterness, start here.
The tea you can drink in the evening
Roasting destroys much of the caffeine. Hojicha is the standard evening tea in Japan and is commonly given to children and to people avoiding stimulants.
But be careful with the label. Only about one listing in seven says anything about caffeine at all, and not a single listing in our set claims to be caffeine-free — because it isn’t. Hojicha is lower in caffeine, not free of it.
Four listings out of 143 give an actual figure in milligrams.
What it tastes like
Almost every seller reaches for the same words: roasted, toasty, caramel, cocoa, nutty. Hojicha is one of the two Japanese teas you can order without tasting it first and get more or less what you expect. (Genmaicha is the other.)
There is real variation underneath that — a light roast keeps some of the green tea character, a dark roast tastes almost like coffee — but you will rarely be able to tell which you are buying, for reasons below.
The roast is the thing nobody tells you
Hojicha is defined by roasting. So how many listings tell you anything about the roast?
| The listing states | Out of 143 listings |
|---|---|
| A roast level — light, medium, dark | 10 |
| Charcoal-roasted | 4 |
| Roasted in-house | 3 |
| The roasting method | 1 |
| A roast date | 1 |
Ten listings in 143 tell you how dark the roast is. One tells you when it was roasted.
That is a strange gap. Roasted tea is at its best within a few months, and the roast level is the single biggest driver of how the cup tastes. Neither is on the label.
What to do about it: buy from a shop that roasts in-house or names the roast, and buy small quantities more often.
What was roasted matters too
Hojicha can be made from almost any green tea, and what went in changes what comes out:
| The listing mentions | Out of 143 |
|---|---|
| Stems (kukicha, karigane) | 35 |
| Sencha | 24 |
| Tencha — the leaf that becomes matcha | 13 |
| Bancha | 10 |
| Gyokuro | 10 |
Stem hojicha is sweeter and lighter. Sencha hojicha is fuller. Tencha hojicha — made from matcha’s raw material — is the luxury version.
Fewer than half of listings name the base tea at all.
And a common belief is wrong: hojicha is usually described as being made from bancha, the late-harvest leaf. Only six listings in 143 actually say their own tea is bancha. Most shops don’t say, and plenty use sencha or stems.
Hojicha or matcha?
| Hojicha | Matcha | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Roasted leaf | Shaded leaf, ground to powder |
| How you drink it | Steeped, leaf discarded | Whisked, you drink the leaf |
| Water | 90°C — hard to get wrong | 75°C |
| Caffeine | Low | High |
| Cost per cup | $0.48–$2.19 | About $2.34 |
If you like matcha lattes but not the caffeine, hojicha powder does the same job in a cup — same milky, toasty result, a fraction of the stimulant.
Where it grew
Three-quarters of listings name a growing region. The most common are Kyoto and Shizuoka, then Uji, Kagoshima, Sayama and Gifu.
That is much better disclosure than matcha gets. If you want to know where your tea came from, hojicha shops are more forthcoming than matcha shops.
Questions people ask
Is hojicha caffeine-free?
No. It is lower in caffeine than other green teas because roasting destroys some of it, but it still contains caffeine. No seller in our set claims otherwise.
Can I drink hojicha at night?
Most people can. It is the standard evening tea in Japan.
What temperature for hojicha?
90°C or straight off the boil. This is the one Japanese green tea where hot water helps.
Is hojicha good for beginners?
Very. It is cheap, forgiving, and tastes nothing like the bitter green tea people are usually put off by.
What is hojicha made from?
Whatever the shop roasted — stems, sencha, bancha or occasionally tencha. Fewer than half of listings say.
Is hojicha powder the same as matcha?
No. Hojicha powder is ground roasted leaf; matcha is ground shaded leaf. Hojicha powder is brown, lower in caffeine, and much cheaper.
143 hojicha listings from fifteen sellers, read 25–26 August 2026. Per-cup figures use 3 g. Retail prices are for packages of 200 g or under.
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