Hojicha Latte: What It Is and How to Prepare It

Recipe of Hojicha Latte: Cappuccino with Roasted Japanese Green Tea

Warm, creamy, and comforting, Hojicha Latte is a beverage with a delicate and decadent taste, but at the same time warming, ideal for cold and rainy winter afternoons. If you have already enjoyed matcha latte, the green cappuccino, for its sweetness and enveloping flavor, try your hand at preparing Hojicha Latte, the latest trend in the tea world, with the recipe from Terza Luna.

Hojicha Latte: Warm and Enveloping Drink with a Toasted Flavor

The Hojicha Latte is one of the latest novelties in the world of tea lovers, especially of Japanese green teas. It is made with a process very similar to the preparation of Matcha Latte, replacing the matcha powder with the fine powder obtained from the grinding of Hojicha roasted tea leaves. Widely popular in Japan, where it is a hit in bars and establishments and is often preferred over matcha latte by customers, this preparation has helped make the Hojicha variety, less famous compared to other types of tea, much more popular. The very particular taste of Hojicha, with a woody aftertaste, warm, almost coffee and hazelnut-like, makes it a tea very suitable for milk-based preparations, cappuccino variations, and American-style lattes, while its low caffeine content makes it an effective alternative for those who want a cappuccino in the afternoon or evening, offering subtle and harmonious notes and a comforting and relaxing effect. Before delving into the preparation of Hojicha latte and revealing the recipe, let's find out more about Hojicha tea, this particular variety of Japanese green tea.

What is Hojicha?

The Hojicha tea, or Houjicha, is a roasted Japanese green tea, with a warm and enveloping flavor and woody hints, with sweet organoleptic notes reminiscent of bark, dried fruit, and caramel in the deeper shades, making it an ideal tea to be paired with milk. It is obtained from the roasting and aging of Bancha tea leaves and stems or Sencha tea, in a processing that almost completely removes the caffeine present in the leaves, making it less bitter and astringent. Especially if derived from Bancha, which is inherently lower in caffeine compared to other Japanese green teas, Hojicha is one of the teas with the lowest caffeine content. Discover what the others are in our article dedicated to teas with low caffeine content.

In addition to containing low amounts of caffeine, and therefore a sweet tea, suitable for any time of the day and for everyone, even for children or those who experience intestinal or energy-related issues when drinking other green teas, Hojicha is a tea rich in minerals, making it a remineralizing and blood alkalizing infusion, particularly suitable for cold and humid periods, when water tends to accumulate.

Normally consumed by steeping the leaves, the practice of grinding Hojicha leaves is becoming increasingly popular in Japan, and now also in the West: this ingredient is used to enrich sweets, creams, and doughs, even pasta. In this article, we will discover how to use it to prepare an alternative to cappuccino: Hojicha Latte.

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Hojicha Latte Recipe

The milk recipe is very simple, and the Hojicha latte recipe is no exception! If you have already prepared matcha latte (if you haven't, check out the recipe on our blog!), you will be pleased to know that the process is very similar. To prepare Hojicha latte, no special techniques or complicated tools are required, however, using the correct accessories will make your Hojicha latte a drink that will rival those prepared in a bar!

Ingredients

• 1 gr. of Organic Hojicha Tea powder
• 50 ml of water at 90°C
• 240 ml of whole milk or plant-based alternative (soy milk, oat milk)
• Sugar or natural sweetener (agave syrup or maple syrup)

Equipment

• Coffee grinder
• Chasen (bamboo whisk for matcha)
• Chawan or Gaiwan
• Frother or Milk Frother

The ideal preparation involves using the chasen to emulsify the hojicha powder with water: alternatively, you can use a regular kitchen whisk.

Procedure

• The first step in preparing Hojicha latte is the treatment of the leaves: the optimal preparation of this drink involves the use of powdered Hojicha.
• But you can also use the leaves, it works just as well. If you choose to infuse, we suggest leaving the hojicha tea leaves to infuse in 40/50 ml of water at 80°C/90°C for 4 minutes.
• If you decide to use Hojicha powder, you will need to put it in a chawan, or a bowl with a flat bottom, adding water at the correct temperature, and using the chasen to mix. Just like matcha, powdered hojicha is prepared for suspension, rather than infusion. Emulsify the Houjicha powder with water using vigorous movements, creating a homogeneous, smooth, and lump-free emulsion, drawing an 'M' shape in the cup with the chasen. This movement helps prevent powder from settling at the bottom. When it is foamy and has bubbles, pour the hojicha emulsion into the cup where you will serve the latte.
• The provided doses are indicative: you can choose to use more or less hojicha powder for an infusion of a different intensity level. An emulsion made with less water will be easier to make, as it reduces the likelihood of creating lumps, while using more water will create a foamy infusion with bubbles on the surface. If you want to decorate your Hojicha with Latte Art, creating a design on the surface when pouring the frothed milk, we suggest making a denser hojicha emulsion to prevent bubbles from forming on the surface, and if necessary, adding more water later, stirring gently.
• Prepare the milk separately, using a milk frother or alternatively an immersion blender, remembering in this case to preheat the milk, bringing it to about 70°C. You can use whole milk, or experiment with different plant-based options: we recommend trying Hojicha latte with oat or soy milk. Once frothed, gently add the milk to the hojicha infusion.
• You can choose whether to sweeten your Hojicha Latte or not. In addition to sugar, this drink pairs very well with natural sweeteners such as agave syrup or maple syrup.

At this point, all you have to do is choose a comfortable armchair, a good book, and relax and warm up with a tasty Hojicha latte.

P.S. For an extra touch, sprinkle the surface of the Hojicha Latte with some cinnamon!

Benefits of Roasted Teas in Winter

What are the benefits of drinking Hojicha? We know that many green tea lovers tend to drink less tea in winter, and indeed green teas are not particularly suitable for this season, as they are cooling and astringent, with an herbaceous and refreshing flavor that could be weakening, extinguishing what traditional Ayurvedic medicine calls internal fire, or digestive fire. Weakening the digestive fire makes the body more vulnerable to external factors such as viruses, intestinal intoxications, and intolerances. Hojicha tea, on the other hand, does not pose these risks, and is actually the ideal green tea for the winter season, to be sipped slowly even in the afternoon or evening, as the roasting process, in addition to reducing the caffeine content, makes it a tea with warm and grounding qualities, rich in minerals and trace elements, which retains the alkalizing properties of Bancha green tea but offers a enveloping and delicate sensation. Suitable even for people with a delicate intestine or during flu or seasonal illnesses, to invigorate the spirit.

Hojicha Iced Latte

If you can't give up the deliciousness and sweetness of Hojicha Latte even in the summer, why not try it in the cold version? To prepare an Iced Houjicha Latte or Hojicha cold milk, very popular in the cafes of Kyoto, where this drink is prepared with great care and aesthetics, put ice cubes in a tall glass, and pour milk (we recommend oat milk) over it, and if desired, a sweetener like maple syrup. Mix, and add the Houjicha infusion, which you will have prepared beforehand with the chasen method.

Where to Buy Hojicha Tea?

If you are wondering where to find Hojicha for sale online, on Terza Luna we have selected an organic variety of this tea, coming from the Shizuoka province in Japan, and from a harvest in 2017. The Terza Luna hojicha tea is obtained from the roasting of Bancha tea leaves, and produces a sweet and enveloping infusion for the palate. From the Hojicha Bio leaves, you can extract the powder for the preparation of your Houjicha Latte!

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Posted by Terza Luna