About this tea
Houjicha is what happens when green tea meets a hot pan. The leaf is roasted until it darkens from green to chestnut brown, and the whole character of the tea changes with it. The grassiness goes. What is left is toasty and sweet, with a caramel edge and a body closer to a light coffee than to sencha.
Roasting also breaks down much of the caffeine, which is why houjicha is the tea Japanese households serve to children and drink after dinner. You can have a pot at nine at night and still sleep.
It is the easiest tea in the range to brew and the hardest to get wrong. Full boiling water, no fussing over temperature, and it will not turn bitter on you if you forget it for a minute. 100g, twice the pack size of our gyokuro, and it goes a long way.
How to brew
Use freshly boiled water, straight off the kettle. Roughly 5g to 300ml, steeped for 30 to 60 seconds. Excellent hot, and just as good cold brewed: put a tablespoon in a jug of cold water and leave it in the fridge overnight.
