Hojicha

Tea: Hojicha
Vendor: Adagio Teas
Location:Japan
Price: $6.00 / 2 oz.
Vendor Description: Green tea from Japan that is rendered brown by roasting Bancha tea leaves over charcoals. The popularity of our 'Hojicha Fugue' stems from its nutty and very accessible mesquite taste. The roasting process lowers its caffeine content. So if you are looking for a low-caffeine green tea, this is a wonderful alternative to our decaffeinated choices.

At first glance this almost looks like a lapsang souchong (which I will review soon). Hojicha has a smoky smell to it, due to the roasting process. The flavor is a very smooth tea with almost no taste of the smokiness in the tea, simply the scent. As a green tea it is one of the most mellow teas I have had to date, a complete contrast to the bite of a fresh sencha. It is more reminiscent of a black tea than a green tea. The taste is very short lived though and has a very low level of astringency.

The most surprising thing about this tea to me though was the color. I was amazed by the shade of brown that this tea produced, I actually sat there staring into my cup admiring the color.

Rating: 6/10

Conclusion: While there is nothing particularly spectacular about this tea there is nothing particularly bad about it as well. If you enjoy black teas you might like this one.