If you love roasted, toasted, and nutty flavors, then you’ll love hojicha tea, an earthy, toasty, and slightly smoky roasted Japanese green tea. You get an incredible roasted flavor that is only elevated when added to milk and sugar.

While you can have hojicha in a brewed tea latte, it’s best in powdered form, also in a latte, or as an einspanner. The sweet, fluffy cream of the einspanner pairs perfectly with the robust hojicha, and it’s a must-try drink!

Here’s how to make a hojicha einspanner at home!

What is Hojicha?

Hojicha, or houjicha, is a Japanese roasted green tea made from roasting green tea leaves and tea plant twigs in a porcelain pot over charcoal. Houji means roasted, and cha means tea in Japanese, hence the name ho(u)jicha. A Japanese merchant in the 1920s invented it to use leftover green tea leaves and stems.

After harvesting, green tea leaves and stems are roasted over a charcoal fire, turning them dark brown. When brewed, the tea is caramel in color and has a roasted, nutty, earthy, and mellow sweetness.

Because of the roasting process, the tea leaves lose much of their caffeine, making hojicha tea great for people with caffeine sensitivities and children.

You can have hojicha as brewed tea or as a tea powder, giving you a stronger roasted flavor than the brewed version.

What Does Hojicha Taste Like?

Hojicha has an amazing roasted quality and a slight smokiness to it. Flavorwise, it has a roasted, nutty, toasty, and smoky profile with a nice sweetness. Roasting the tea over a charcoal fire brings out the tea’s sweetness along with an earthy, subtle spice.

In milk, brewed hojicha is creamy and smooth with a delicious roasted flavor. Hojicha tea powder gives you much more of a smoky and toasted flavor and is much more intense than brewed tea.

It pairs well with roasted or darker flavors like caramel, brown sugar, chestnuts, chocolate, and nuts. However, it also pairs well with creamy flavors like coconut, white chocolate, or citrus!

Hojicha vs. Matcha

Hojicha and matcha are two famous Japanese green tea powders enjoyed by thousands worldwide. However, they taste quite different and are produced in different ways.

Matcha is a green tea powder made from grinding young, shade-grown green tea leaves into a fine powder. The result is a bright green tea powder with a vegetal, umami, and earthy smell that is sometimes sweet and creamy.

Hojicha is a roasted green tea powder made from slowly roasting mature green tea leaves, stems, and stalks over a charcoal fire until the tea leaves turn a dark brown color. When ground, hojicha tea powder is dark brown and has a roasted, smoky smell and robust toasted flavor.

Is Hojicha Just Roasted Matcha?

When you hear roasted green tea powder, you might think that hojicha is just roasted matcha, which is a green tea powder. However, hojicha is not roasted matcha.

If you roast matcha powder, you will have a burnt-tasting tea and ruined matcha. The powder is too fine to roast to impart a good flavor.

While both teas are made from the same tea plant, the stage at which the tea leaves are used for both is different. Matcha is made from younger tea leaves than hojicha, which has a different flavor from the ones in hojicha.

You can make hojicha if you use the right tea leaves and have a readily available charcoal fire, but it takes time to roast tea slowly without burning it.

Caffeine in Hojicha

As mentioned, hojicha has a very low caffeine amount of about 7.7 mg per half teaspoon. In comparison, matcha can have 40 mg of caffeine per half teaspoon, almost more than 5 times the amount.

This is because older tea leaves do not retain or produce as much caffeine as young tea leaves, which have more. Additionally, roasting the tea leaves also breaks down the caffeine as well, leaving you with a delicious, low-caffeinated tea that you can enjoy before bed!

Besides having low caffeine, hojicha also has a ton of other health benefits, making it a perfect tea to enjoy all day.

What is an Einspanner?

An einspänner, or Viennese coffee, is a hot beverage with espresso topped with whipped cream. It started in Austria in the 19th century to keep coffee warm for coachmen and carriage drivers.

The whipped cream keeps the coffee insulated and prevents it from spilling for coachmen driving carriages, waiting in the cold for their next patron. The name einspanner comes from the one-horse carriages that were popular at the time, the equivalent of modern-day taxis.

Now, you can find this delicious drink worldwide with different renditions of the classic drink from matcha einspanners, einspanner lattes, and hojicha einspanners!

How to Make a Hojicha Einspanner

A hojicha einspanner is milky with the perfect sweetness and a robust tea flavor. It’s a great alternative to milk tea, which can sometimes be watery or not flavorful enough.

To make a hojicha einspanner, you’ll need:

• 1 tsp hojicha tea powder
• 1 cup water
• 2 tsp sugar
• ¼ cup heavy cream
• 1 cup ice

Hojicha Einspanner Recipe

1. Prepare hojicha. Whisk hojicha tea powder with water in a tea bowl in a zigzag motion using a tea whisk until a froth forms. You can also use a handheld frother or shake in a lidded jar.
2. Make einspanner cream. Whip heavy cream and sugar in a small cup or bowl using a handheld frother or electric whisk until light and fluffy. The mixture should be soft and thick but still pourable.
3. Assemble drink. Add ice and hojicha into a separate cup, then top with the einspanner cream.
4. Mix and enjoy!

Where to Get Hojicha Tea Powder

You can find hojicha tea leaves in most Asian grocery stores in the tea aisle! However, hojicha tea powder is a little harder to find. Most hojicha powders are sold by specialty grocery stores, tea stores, or cafes. Many matcha-specific cafes or stores also sell hojicha adjacent.

The best and easiest way to get hojicha is by buying it online from known brands or cafes. I’m still hunting for my favorite hojicha tea powder, but I’ve had it from local cafes around me in the Bay Area, like Matcha Cafe Maiko, Polaris Cafe, Izumi Matcha, etc.

You can also make hojicha powder by grinding hojicha tea. However, without a high-quality grinder that can make fine powder, the hojicha you grind will probably be very gritty and unpleasant to drink.

Other Hojicha Drinks

Aside from hojicha einspanners, you can make all sorts of hojicha drinks:

• Iced hojicha lattes
• Caramel hojicha latte
• Strawberry hojicha latte
• Iced hojicha tea
• Double hojicha latte
• Hojicha corn einspanner
• Ice cream hojicha tea float

And the list goes on!

Tips

Here are some tips for making a delicious hojicha einspanner at home!

• For more hojicha flavor, use an extra half teaspoon of hojicha tea powder. Increase your amounts gradually to find the sweet spot!
• You can add hojicha tea powder to the cream for a double hojicha latte with hojicha cream.
• If your hojicha tea powder has clumps, sift it using a fine mesh sieve.
• Make this more creamy by adding milk to the whisked hojicha.

Other Einspanner Drinks to Try

If you love this hojicha einspanner, then you need to try all the other delicious einspanner combinations out there! Here are some of my favorites:

• Matcha Einspanner
• Black Sesame Einspanner Latte
• Corn Hojicha Einspanner