On the same shelf stand hojicha, stem hojicha and roasted genmaicha. All three carry "hōji", and what is left of each name is a method, a part of the plant, or something mixed in.

What follows sets out what these pages take on and what they leave alone, together with the line against neighbouring drinks.

Only two things taken on

Pick up a packet and the print on the front is a different size from the back. Two things are covered: how to read the roast, and how to read the blend.

The roast is a question of how far the fire went. The blend is a question of how stems, rice or other teas were put together.

Everything else is left to other books and other guidance. First, the line against neighbouring drinks.

A tea leaf, and the seed of a fruit

The hojicha in the cup and the coffee in the mug beside it both smell toasty. The line between neighbouring drinks can be drawn with two things: the material, and the roasting.

What hojicha roasts is the leaf or stem of the tea plant, fire added after the green tea is made. Black tea comes from the same plant, but there the leaves are allowed to oxidise. That is a different step from roasting, so roasting black tea hard does not turn it into the hojicha that comes from green tea.

Coffee differs from the material up: the coffee industry's own association describes the bean as the seed inside a fruit. Behind the same words, "dark roast", what is put to the fire is not the same thing. The sources speak to material and process, and that is all. Next, what stays off the shelf.

What stays off the shelf

Next to this shelf stand books of recipes and books about daily life. What is left out is settled from the start.

There will be no catalogue of regional brands, because a place name alone does not settle what is inside. Recipes and confectionery are left to the books that appear regularly. History is left to a scholar's two volumes on the folklore of bancha.

On health there is no assertion here: these pages go as far as the rise and fall of compounds. What those do in the body is left to the guidance of public bodies. Next, the packet after the last page.

The back of the packet, afterwards

Back at the shelf, the front and back of a packet start to look like two different faces. What changes by the last page is how a packet is read.

"Dark roast" on the front is each shop's own word. No reference temperature for roast level is set anywhere. The field marked "name" on the back, and the ingredients, are the side whose words the labelling rules settled.

That line becomes visible on the packet. The rules account for how the words are fixed, and no more. Names and years are gathered just below.

The numbers in detail

Coffee bean
The National Coffee Association describes the bean as the seed inside the coffee fruit.
Coffee page
That description is on its page "What is Coffee?".
Green tea's heating
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries' "Types of tea with varied flavours and aromas" says green tea is heated early in processing.
Black tea's oxidation
The same guidance says black tea is made by letting oxidation proceed.
Recipe books
Recipes and confectionery are left to the books appearing regularly since 2012.
History books
History is left with Nakamura Yōichirō's two volumes on the folklore of bancha.
Labelling rules
The Green Tea Labelling Standard (緑茶の表示基準) of the Japan Tea Central Public Interest Incorporated Association.
How books were checked
Across National Diet Library Search, CiNii Books and Rakuten Books (22 September 2026).