hojicha– tag –

Walk into an old tea shop in Kyoto and you'll find gyokuro, the shaded tea Japan treats as one of its finest, priced and packed with care. Look a little further along the shelf and there's often a quieter bag nearby. It's full of pale gr...

Most Japanese green teas are judged by their leaves. Kukicha (茎茶) turns that idea around. It's a Japanese green tea made mainly from the stems and leaf stalks of the tea plant, the parts that finishers sort away when they want a neat, ...

Genmaicha (玄米茶) is a Japanese green tea blended with roasted rice. Producers mix bancha or sencha with roasted rice, usually in close to equal parts. The rice is soaked, steamed, and roasted until golden brown. Some of it pops open du...

Karigane Hōjicha (雁が音ほうじ茶) is a roasted Japanese tea. Producers make it from karigane: the stems, stalks, and leaf veins they sort out while processing gyokuro and other high-grade, shade-grown tea. It starts from gyokuro-grade pl...

Kaga Bōcha (加賀棒茶) is a roasted Japanese tea made almost entirely from tea stems rather than leaves. It comes from Kanazawa, in Ishikawa Prefecture. Dozens of local roasting houses there turn separated tea stems into a naturally sweet...

Kyobancha (京番茶), also sold as Iribancha, is Kyoto's own style of roasted green tea: large, unrolled leaves with an intensely smoky aroma, brewed into a surprisingly mellow, low-bitterness cup. It's made from the coarse, mature leaves ...

Bancha (番茶) is Japan's everyday green tea. It's an inexpensive, mild-tasting brew made from more mature leaves, picked later in the season than the tender young growth used for sencha or gyokuro. Many households in Japan keep it in the...

Ochazuke is a beloved and time-honored Japanese culinary tradition, that exemplifies the art of simplicity and comfort in Japanese cuisine. This humble dish, whose name translates to "soaked in tea". Locals cherished it for its ability t...

Ochazuke is a beloved and time-honored Japanese culinary tradition, that exemplifies the art of simplicity and comfort in Japanese cuisine. This humble dish, whose name translates to "soaked in tea". Locals cherished it for its ability t...