So, you want a roasty toasty cup of hojicha tea before bed, but you’re unsure whether it’s going to keep you up at night? The wonderfully-flavored hojicha is often marketed as low- or no-caffeine tea, but that may not be entirely true.
Let’s talk about the caffeine content of hojicha (hint – a can of soda has more than triple the amount) and what you can do to decrease it even more.
Tea is divided into two groups – herbal and true teas.
Tisanes or herbal teas are mostly non-caffeinated. These may come from any plant and in most cases don’t contain caffeine. Mugicha (麦茶), aka barley tea, is a popular afternoon drink in Japan as it contains no caffeine. Around the world, caffeine-free herbs like mint, chamomile, and hibiscus make popular evening teas.
On the other leaf, true tea comes from Camellia sinensis, the tea plant. This vast group includes white tea, black (or red) tea, green tea, and many more – a whole colorful palette of more or less caffeinated beverages.
It can be difficult to determine the caffeine content of any true tea, because it depends on a lot of variables: the part of the tea plant used, where it was in its yearly cycle when it was picked, how it was processed, and finally, how you brew it in your cup.
As a rule of thumb, the longer you steep your tea and the hotter your water is, the more caffeine you’ll have in your tea cup. Of course, how much tea you use plays a role too.
Sadly, because of this, there’s no straight answer for how much caffeine there is in a cup of hojicha tea. However, even if you don’t get your tea chemically analyzed, you can be sure that it has far less caffeine than an average cup of green tea.
Amount of Caffeine in a Cup of Hojicha Tea
Hojicha is made by roasting different kinds of Japanese green tea, so it does contain some caffeine. However, a lot of the caffeine evaporates during roasting, so hojicha ends up having very little of it.
That being said, hojicha is sometimes marketed as a caffeine-free tea – not entirely true, but some hojicha does contain only trace amounts.That is, on average, around 7 mg of caffeine in a cup of hojicha.
I consider medium and dark roast hojicha a low-caffeine tea and often drink it in the evening, but you might want to think twice if you’re particularly sensitive to caffeine.
The best way to check how much caffeine your hojicha has is to read the label or search for the particular kind of tea you have.
Here’s what to look for on the label, or rather, here are the most important factors that determine hojicha caffeine content:
Light or Dark Roast
Hojicha is a roasted tea, and the roasting process reduces the amount of caffeine in the tea leaves.
Caffeine sublimes at around 180°C, and to get hojicha from green tea, the leaves are roasted for 5 to 20 minutes on temperatures between 180° and 250°C (356° - 482°F). Not all caffeine evaporates at once, so the longer the tea is roasted, the more caffeine it will lose.
This large gap in temperatures and roasting times gives us a variety of hojicha teas, from a light roast with less smokiness and more caffeine, to dark roasts with a heavy smoky aroma and almost no caffeine.
Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any standardized way of labeling, but here are some terms to look out for:
- Lightly roasted hojicha has more caffeine than deeply-roasted. Look at the color of the tea leaves – if it’s light colored or even shows hints of green, it might contain more caffeine than other hojicha. Light roast is often labeled with 浅く焙じ - asaku-houji – or 軽く炒った - karuku-itta.
- Dark roast, which has smokier flavor and less caffeine, is labeled with terms like 深煎り- fuka-iri (deep roast), or 強火焙煎 - tsuyobi-baisen (roasted on high heat).
Tea Leaves Used
Not all hojicha is made from the same kind of tea – if the tea of origin has a lot of caffeine, the roasted hojicha you get from it might have plenty of it too. However, most hojicha is made of lower-caffeine tea leaves.
- Sencha: Hojicha made by roasting sencha (first flush tea) will contain more caffeine than the kinds made by roasting later-flush tea leaves. That is because the first leaves of the year, especially forming buds, contain most caffeine.
- Bancha: The leaves of bancha are harvested later (second or third flush) and have much less caffeine naturally, so bancha-based hojicha will have lower caffeine from the get-go too. The bancha leaves are also overall harder, so all chemicals - including caffeine - brew slower with this type of tea, giving you less caffeine per brew.
- Stems: Hojicha that includes or is made oftea leaf stems (like kukicha) will have very little to no caffeine at all because the stem teas have very little caffeine to begin with. Most of the caffeine of the tea plant is collected in young leaves, so older leaves and stems give a perfect low-caf raw material for hojicha. Houjicha made of the almost uncaffeinated stems is known as 茎ほうじ茶 - kuki-houjicha or 棒ほうじ茶 - bou-houjicha.
How to Brew Hojicha for Minimum Caffeine
How you brew your tea also influences how much caffeine will be extracted from the leaves.
If you want to avoid caffeine but love a toasty cup of hojicha, you can also adjust your brewing method. The way you brew your hojicha can further reduce the caffeine content in your cup.
In short:
- The hotter the water, the more caffeine
- The longer you steep, the more caffeine gets extracted.
In general, people brew hojicha with hot water at around 90°C (194°F). However, you can get hojicha that’s just as tasty yet less caffeinated if you brew it at 70-80°C (158°-176°F).
Let it steep for about 30 seconds on the first brew, and around a minute on the second brew. Hojicha is generally sweet-tasting, it doesn’t get astringent, so people who prefer strong flavors like to brew it for a longer time. However, the longer you brew, the more caffeine gets released too, so it’s good to experiment and find the right balance for yourself.
What About Hojicha Powder?
If you’re a fan of hojicha lattes, you might consume a bit more caffeine compared to hojicha leaf infusion tea.
It’s not that hojicha powder contains more caffeine – it contains exactly the same.
Instead, the way you consume it is different:
When you make a hojicha infusion (regular tea), your tea leaves have only a little time to release caffeine and other chemicals into the water. The leaves, which still contain a lot of its chemical ingredients, are then discarded.
On the other hand, hojicha powder is basically ground tea leaves that you mix with water/milk and drink directly. When you ingest powdered hojicha, you consume 100% of its chemical ingredients, including caffeine.
So, even though it will never come close to matcha caffeine levels, hojicha powder drinks will still get you more of a buzz compared to tea leaf steeping.
Sleepy Toasty Tea
In summary, hojicha is a wonderful low-caffeine tea you can have in the evenings, but it won’t exactly put you to sleep like chamomile or valerian root can. It’s low in caffeine, but not completely devoid of it, so it’s still important to practice caution and avoid large amounts of hojicha if you want to go to sleep soon after. Of course, the specifics about the tea matter too.
People with caffeine intolerance should still be careful and avoid any true tea out of precaution, or at least choose a dark-roast hojicha made of stems.
Learn More About Japanese Teas
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dunja Djuragic Dugandzic
Dunja believes simple, straightforward, a little cheeky, and very informative writing can change the world. From teenage years, her fascination with the Japanese way of life continues to grow - and so does her research. Since 2015, she writes content about Japan, travel, world cultures and heritage, crafts and art, printing technologies, and a variety of digital products.
FOOD PHOTOGRAPHER
Eri Nakamura Kobe-Based Freelance Photographer Specializing in Culinary Art
With roots in Kyoto and training from the Japan Institute of Photography and Film, Eri has built a career capturing the beauty of food. Eri is passionate about creating images that make culinary creations shine, helping brands tell their story through stunning visuals.
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