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Hojicha: The Quiet Rise of Japan's Roasted Green Tea — and What the Evidence Says
Hojicha — the roasted, caramel-toned green tea that's been quietly served in Japanese homes for a century — is now appearing on café menus across the UK, US, and beyond. Search interest is up over 50% in a year, and "the new matcha" headlines are everywhere. So what's actually in your cup, what does the research support, and where does the wellness messaging get ahead of the evidence?
A Hundred-Year-Old Tea Has a New Audience
In 2026, hojicha is having its moment. Searches for "hojicha latte" are up about 173% in the past year. The UK Tea & Infusions Association called the tea "making waves" in British cafés [3]. The New York Times has published a recipe for hojicha tiramisu. Dedicated hojicha bars have opened in London. The pattern is recognizable: a Japanese tea that was a household staple for decades is now a premium menu item across the English-speaking world [3].
The reason isn't entirely about discovery. Matcha production is under strain. Extreme heat in Japan has reduced output, especially in the Kyoto region where tencha is grown for matcha. May 2025 auction prices for high-grade tencha hit 8,235 yen per kilogram in Kyoto, up 170% in a single year. Cafés that built their business on matcha lattes need a backup plan. Hojicha — cheaper to produce, easier to source, and made from leaves that would otherwise be considered second-tier — fills the gap.
But the rise is also about flavor and caffeine. Hojicha tastes nothing like the grassy, sometimes-bitter intensity of matcha. The roasted leaves produce a tea that's warm, nutty, slightly caramel-like, and significantly easier to drink for people who never quite warmed up to matcha. It also contains far less caffeine than most green teas, which makes it suitable for afternoon and evening drinking. As a category, it's a different proposition than matcha rather than a direct competitor — and that may be the better story than "the new matcha."
What Hojicha Actually Is
All true tea — green, black, white, oolong, matcha, hojicha — comes from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. The differences come from how the leaves are processed after harvest.
Hojicha was invented in Kyoto in the 1920s, when a tea merchant began roasting leaves that hadn't sold to extend their shelf life. The roasting transformed them: a dark amber color replaced the green, the grassy notes gave way to toasted-nut and caramel aromas, and the bitterness softened. The process turned out to be more than a salvage operation — the result was a tea with its own character and its own chemistry, made from bancha (later-harvest leaves), sencha, or stems and twigs (kukicha) that wouldn't be used for premium teas.
The roasting happens at high temperatures, typically around 180-220°C. At those temperatures, a specific chemical process called the Maillard reaction takes over. The same reaction is responsible for the brown crust on bread, the deep flavor of roasted coffee, and the caramel notes of a seared steak. Inside the tea leaves, amino acids and sugars react and rearrange, producing pyrazines (the compounds responsible for the toasted aroma), melanoidins (which give hojicha its rich brown color), and other Maillard products.
What the Roasting Changes, Biologically
Three things happen to the leaf during roasting that matter for the health discussion:
**Catechins decrease.** The catechins that give green tea its astringent, sometimes bitter taste — including EGCG, often singled out as the headline antioxidant in green tea marketing — degrade at high temperatures. Hojicha still contains catechins, but in lower concentrations than sencha or matcha. The most aggressive wellness-industry claims about matcha's catechin content do not apply to hojicha at the same magnitudes.
**Caffeine decreases substantially.** This is one of hojicha's most-cited features and one of the few where the claim consistently matches the data. While exact figures vary by leaf quality and brewing method, hojicha typically contains around 7-15 mg of caffeine per cup. Sencha delivers roughly 25-30 mg. Matcha, depending on preparation, ranges from 40-85 mg. Coffee delivers 80-150 mg. This makes hojicha plausibly suitable for evening drinking in a way that matcha simply isn't for most caffeine-sensitive people.
**New compounds appear that don't exist in unroasted green tea.** This is the more interesting part of the story. Pyrazines, especially 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, are created by the Maillard reaction and are abundant in hojicha. Melanoidins — high-molecular-weight brown pigments — are also formed. These compounds are absent from sencha, matcha, and gyokuro. They are not weaker versions of green tea compounds; they are different molecules with their own properties.
What the Research Actually Supports
This is the part of the article where editorial honesty matters. The wellness coverage of hojicha has a tendency to attribute most green-tea-research findings to hojicha as if the two were interchangeable. They are not — the chemistry has changed substantially. Here's what the evidence specific to hojicha actually shows.
**Antioxidant compounds survive digestion.** A 2025 study published in Foods used a simulated gastrointestinal digestion model to track what happens to hojicha's compounds after the leaves are roasted, brewed, and consumed. Roughly half of hojicha's polyphenols and about 31% of its antioxidant capacity remained bioavailable after the digestion process, comparable in proportion to other green teas despite the roasting [1]. The framing of this finding matters: it doesn't show hojicha has more antioxidants than other green teas (it has fewer of the catechins), but it does show that the polyphenols still present make it to the parts of the digestive tract where they can be absorbed or fermented [1].
**Hojicha has measurable effects on cognitive and physiological responses.** A 2024 study published in Scientific Reports, conducted by researchers at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan in collaboration with Ito En, gave participants either hojicha, sencha, or a control beverage before mental tasks. Compared to control, both teas were associated with improved performance on cognitively demanding tasks and reduced subjective feelings of fatigue [2]. The hojicha effect held even though its caffeine content is much lower than sencha's — suggesting compounds beyond caffeine were contributing [2]. This is a small study (not a definitive finding), but it's notable because it specifically tested hojicha rather than extrapolating from general green tea research.
**Pyrazines may influence the autonomic nervous system through olfaction.** Several studies on 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine — including research independent of the tea industry — suggest that inhaling these aromatic compounds can shift the autonomic nervous system toward parasympathetic activity (the "rest and digest" response) and away from sympathetic activity (the "fight or flight" response). The mechanism appears to be olfactory: smelling the compound, rather than ingesting it, drives the effect. This is a plausible explanation for why hojicha drinkers consistently describe the experience as soothing in ways that go beyond the warmth of any hot beverage. The evidence is suggestive rather than definitive, and the magnitude of the effect in real-world consumption hasn't been precisely characterized.
What the Evidence Does Not Yet Support
A few claims that circulate around hojicha worth being clear about:
**"Hojicha is better for sleep than chamomile."** This is unsupported as a clinical claim. No randomized trials have directly compared hojicha to chamomile for sleep outcomes. Hojicha's low caffeine and pleasant aroma make it a reasonable evening beverage, but it is not a substitute for evidence-based sleep practices or treatment of insomnia.
**"Hojicha boosts immunity."** A claim that appears across wellness sites with little specific research behind it. General green tea consumption has been associated with various immune-related outcomes in observational studies, but extending those findings specifically to hojicha — which has substantially different chemistry — overstates the evidence.
**"Hojicha is a powerful anti-aging tea."** Specific anti-aging claims for hojicha are not supported by current research. The compound chemistry is interesting, but no human longevity studies have isolated hojicha consumption as a variable.
In general: if a claim about hojicha sounds like it could be a claim about any tea (or any beverage), the evidence base for that claim specific to hojicha is probably thin. The findings that are specific to hojicha — its pyrazine profile, its lower caffeine, its surviving polyphenols — are real but more modest in scope than the most enthusiastic marketing suggests.
A Reasonable Way to Think About It
If you enjoy hojicha, the honest framing is that you're drinking a tea with a distinctive flavor, low caffeine, a meaningful polyphenol load, and some genuinely interesting roasting-derived compounds. It is probably a healthier evening beverage than alcohol, sugary drinks, or late-day coffee, and it offers a pleasant ritual without the stimulant load of stronger teas.
What it isn't, on current evidence, is a substantially superior tea for general health compared to other green teas or a clinically proven solution for sleep, immunity, or longevity. It is what it is — a delicious roasted tea with mild, broadly favorable effects on the body — and it doesn't need the wellness-industry overlay to be worth drinking.
The trend, viewed less cynically than the marketing might invite, also reflects something real: a shift in beverage preferences toward lower-caffeine, lower-stimulation options that still offer ritual and warmth. That's a sensible direction. Hojicha fits it well.
If you're using tea as part of a strategy to manage specific health conditions, particularly sleep problems, anxiety, or caffeine sensitivity, talking to a qualified healthcare professional will get you advice more tailored to your situation than any beverage article can. Tea is one small input among many.
Further Reading
Exploring the Bioaccessibility of Roasted Japanese Green Tea: Impact of Simulated Gastrointestinal Digestion (Foods, 2025) — establishes that hojicha's polyphenols and antioxidant capacity survive digestion despite the roasting process
doi.org
Effects of Green Tea and Roasted Green Tea on Human Responses (Scientific Reports, 2024) — direct human trial showing hojicha and sencha both improved task performance and reduced fatigue versus control
doi.org
UK Tea & Infusions Association industry statement on hojicha trend (January 2026), as reported in Prism News — primary source for the consumer trend and supply context
prismnews.com
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