Two teapots stand side by side, one filled with sencha and one with hojicha. The sencha leaves are deep green; the hojicha leaves are roasted brown. The colours could hardly differ more, yet hojicha is green tea too. The parting of the ways is the fire that comes after finishing.
Even before the water goes in, the scents have parted ways.
Steamed green, roasted brown
Open the tin and sencha's fresh, grassy scent rises at once. Sencha is green tea that was steamed and rolled; hojicha is that tea roasted afterwards.
Under the labelling rules, sencha is leaf steamed, rolled and dried. Green tea is heated at the very start, which stops the leaf's enzymes and keeps it green. Hojicha is made by roasting sencha, bancha and the like over strong heat.
One extra step, roasting or not, divides the names. After the process comes the taste.
Umami in sencha, toastiness in hojicha
Bring the cup to the lips and roasted leaf rises from the hojicha. Sencha's taste centres on umami and astringency; hojicha's on toastiness.
In the heat, roasted tea leaves swap what they hold. In a prefectural trial, the umami compound fell sharply with a light roast and could not be found at deeper ones. Astringent catechins fell to about a fifth in a dark roast.
In their place, fire brings a toasty aroma. Public guides describe sencha as moderately astringent with a fresh green aroma, and hojicha as almost free of astringency and bitterness. How the aroma forms is taken further in How hojicha is roasted: amino acids and sugar turning into aroma.
Same figure, different brewing
Run a finger down the food table and the two teas show the same figure. In the infusion, hojicha and sencha carry the same caffeine.
The brewing conditions behind those figures are not the same, though. Hojicha is measured with more leaf and a short steep; sencha with less leaf and a longer one. For the dry leaf itself, sencha shows the higher figure.
Roasting does not remove much caffeine. The figures hold only for fixed conditions. The roasting trial is set out in Does roasting reduce caffeine in hojicha?. Then, the temperature of the water.
Cooled water, boiling water
Pour the kettle into a cooling bowl and the steam thins. Sencha is brewed with cooled water, and hojicha with water straight off the boil.
In the standard drawn up by a tea study group, finer sencha gets cooler water and a longer steep. Hojicha is brewed briefly in boiling water to bring out the roasted aroma.
Brewing hojicha is set out in more detail in Hojicha brewing by purpose: strength, time and second infusions. Last, the cup after a meal.
After a meal, which to pour
After a meal, there is a moment's hesitation over which to pour. The clues for choosing are where the taste centres, the water temperature and the roast.
For umami and astringency, sencha; for toastiness, hojicha. Taking time to cool the water, or brewing quickly straight off the boil, also divides them. The association's Hojicha Encyclopedia includes a hoji sencha, first-pick sencha given a light roast.
Which is better for health cannot be settled from these sources. The figures and sources follow below.
The numbers in detail
- Definitions
- Table 1 of the Japan Tea Central Association's Labelling Standards for Green Tea defines sencha as “leaf steamed, rolled and dried” and hojicha as “sencha, bancha and the like roasted over strong heat”.
- Heat and colour
- MAFF (aff, April 2022) explains that green tea is heated at the first stage of manufacture to deactivate enzymes and keep its colour. Sencha's “moderate astringency and fresh green aroma” and hojicha's “almost no astringency or bitterness” come from the same page. The umami and sweetness description is from MAFF's “Ways to enjoy Japanese tea”.
- Umami
- In the Kochi Agricultural Research Center Tea Experiment Station report (2013 data), first-flush theanine was 21.12 mg unroasted and 1.27 mg in the light roast. It was not detected in the medium and dark roasts. Values are per 100 mL of liquid from 1.9 g of leaf in 200 mL of boiling water for 5 minutes.
- Astringency
- In the same report, catechins in the dark-roasted first-flush tea were about a fifth of the unroasted tea.
- Caffeine
- The Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan (8th revised edition, 2023 supplement) list both infusions at 0.02 g per 100 mL. Sencha is 10 g of leaf, 430 mL of water at 90°C and 1 minute; hojicha is 15 g, 650 mL at 90°C and 0.5 minutes. Per 100 g of dry leaf, sencha is 2.3 g and hojicha 1.5 g.
- Roasting and caffeine
- In the same station's 2014 data, a dark roast held 6–13% less caffeine than the unroasted tea, and a light roast hardly any less.
- Brewing standard
- The table in “Twelve months of tea school-lunch menus” on the Japan Tea Central Association website gives fine sencha at 70°C for 120 seconds, regular sencha at 90°C for 60 seconds and hojicha in boiling water for 30 seconds. Its source is the Tea Brewing Study Group (1973). The reason for boiling water is given in the MAFF PDF “How to brew tea well”.
- Hoji sencha
- From the encyclopedia entry for Tsukigase Kenko Chaen's organic first-pick hoji sencha ‘Tsukika’ (checked 17 September 2026).