A pinch of hojicha leaf goes on the kitchen scale. Gyokuro, weighed for the small dish beside it, takes a handful and fills it. With the water held level, the same word, leaf, covers amounts this far apart.
What follows sets out two ways of rearranging figures measured under different conditions so that they can be compared.
The groups brewed the same way
Run a ruler down the table and, here and there, rows share the same brewing column. Figures compare as they stand only inside a group measured the same way.
In the national food table, just two groups share exactly the same conditions. Hojicha's group holds bancha, genmaicha and oolong tea; sencha's holds kamairicha.
In hojicha's group, hojicha and oolong tea sit on the higher side, bancha and genmaicha on the lower. In sencha's group, sencha is the higher. On the table, hojicha is placed on the higher side.
How far that gap can be read depends on the table's precision. After the groups comes how coarse that precision is.
A table with a coarse mesh
The table's figures are cut off at a very shallow decimal place. At that coarseness hojicha cannot be called equal to sencha, nor double bancha.
Sift sand through a coarse sieve and the small differences between grains do not survive. The table, too, gathers nearby figures onto one mark.
What can be written is that, at the table's precision, they cannot be told apart. After the precision comes dividing by the weight of leaf.
Divided by the weight of leaf
A gyokuro cup is small, and a generous heap of leaf goes into it. Per gram of leaf, the wide gap between gyokuro and hojicha all but disappears.
On the table, gyokuro's caffeine looks many times hojicha's. But gyokuro also puts nearly that much more leaf into the same amount of water. Gyokuro comes out strong because it is brewed strong.
The rearranged values are calculated, not printed in the table. After the rearranging comes the value for the leaf itself.
Figure 1-2-2Infusion conditions, published values and per-gram-of-leaf figures by type of tea
| Type of tea | Infusion conditions (g of leaf, water temperature, mL of water, time) | Leaf per 100 mL of water [calculated] | Caffeine per 100 mL of infusion (published, mg) | Per gram of leaf [calculated] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gyokuro | 10 g of leaf・60°C・60 mL・2.5 min | 16.7 g | 160 | 9.6 mg |
| Sencha | 10 g of leaf・90°C・430 mL・1 min | 2.33 g | 20 | 8.6 mg |
| Kamairicha | 10 g of leaf・90°C・430 mL・1 min | 2.33 g | 10 | 4.3 mg |
| Bancha | 15 g of leaf・90°C・650 mL・0.5 min | 2.31 g | 10 | 4.3 mg |
| Hojicha | 15 g of leaf・90°C・650 mL・0.5 min | 2.31 g | 20 | 8.7 mg |
| Genmaicha | 15 g of leaf・90°C・650 mL・0.5 min | 2.31 g | 10 | 4.3 mg |
| Oolong tea | 15 g of leaf・90°C・650 mL・0.5 min | 2.31 g | 20 | 8.7 mg |
| Black tea | 5 g of leaf・boiling water 360 mL・1.5–4 min | 1.39 g | 30 | 21.6 mg |
As leaf, the lowest of all
Dry leaf from the packet rustles between the fingers. As a value for the leaf itself, hojicha sits lowest of all.
The new supplement lists values for the leaf as well. Against gyokuro, matcha, black tea, sencha and bancha, hojicha leaf is the lowest. Low as leaf, level with sencha once brewed. Both hold at once.
What cannot be done is divide the leaf value by the infusion value to see how much came out. The national table does not say the two were measured on the same sample. The figures and conditions are gathered just below. The leaf on the scale goes back to the usual pinch, and into the pot.
The numbers in detail
- Table used
- The table used is the 2023 supplement to the Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan (eighth revised). The amounts on the scale are leaf per 100 mL of water: hojicha 2.31 g, gyokuro 16.7 g [calculated].
- Hojicha's group
- One group shares 15 g of leaf, 650 mL of water at 90°C, 0.5 minutes. Per 100 mL of infusion: bancha 10 mg, genmaicha 10 mg, hojicha 20 mg, oolong tea 20 mg.
- Sencha's group
- The other group shares 10 g of leaf, 430 mL of water at 90°C, 1 minute. Sencha is 20 mg, kamairicha 10 mg.
- Precision
- Values in this column are in grams to two decimal places (0.01 g, 0.02 g). That is too coarse to read the gap between 10 mg and 20 mg as twice.
- Gyokuro
- Gyokuro is brewed with 10 g of leaf, 60 mL of water at 60°C, 2.5 minutes, and comes to 160 mg. That is eight times hojicha's 20 mg, but the leaf per 100 mL of water is 7.2 times as much [calculated].
- Per gram of leaf
- Per gram of leaf, gyokuro is 9.6 mg and hojicha 8.7 mg, a gap of about 1.1 times [calculated].
- The leaf itself
- Per 100 g of leaf itself: gyokuro 3.5 g, matcha 3.2 g, black tea 2.9 g, sencha 2.3 g, bancha 1.9 g, hojicha 1.5 g.