Ingredients · Tea

Japanese Green Tea

Camellia sinensis var. sinensis · Theaceae (tea family)

Japanese Green Tea
The everyday Japanese leaf, beyond sencha — bancha, the later-season pluck that is Japan's ordinary house tea; hojicha, bancha roasted over charcoal until it turns reddish-brown and loses most of its edge; and the genmaicha base. Three products carry one or another. What they have in common is steaming rather than pan-firing, which is what gives every Japanese green its particular grassy, almost marine character.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partLeaf
KindTea
CaffeineContains caffeine
Where it is fromJapan
TasteBancha is milder and strawy; hojicha is reddish-brown, toasty and caramel-like with almost no bitterness; genmaicha is nutty with toasted rice
How to brew it
  • Bancha 185°F / 85°C, 1 to 2 minutes. Hojicha 200°F / 93°C, 30 seconds to 1 minute
  • forgiving either way

How to use it

Bancha and hojicha take hotter water than sencha and are far more forgiving — hojicha can take boiling water and a long steep without turning bitter, which makes it the evening cup and the one served to children and the elderly. Ochazuke: pour it hot over leftover rice with nori and pickles. Hojicha also works as a latte and in ice cream.

With food

Rice and ochazuke. Grilled fish. Pickles and nori. Sesame. Mochi and red bean. Roasted vegetables. Caramel, with hojicha.

With spices

Toasted rice and sesame. Ginger. Yuzu. Shichimi togarashi, at the table.

With tea

Toasted rice for genmaicha; roasted into hojicha; blended with cherry and rose for a sakura tea.

Its story

Where it comes from

Japan's tea belt runs from Akita at 40°N to Okinawa at 26°N. Kagoshima overtook Shizuoka as the largest producer in 2024, a position Shizuoka had held since records began in 1959; together they grow about 70 per cent of the country's unrefined tea. Our Kyushu decaf names the island but not the prefecture.

What happened

Tea came to Japan with monks. Eichu served it to Emperor Saga in 815, the earliest documented cup, and Eisai returned from China in 1191 with scriptures and seeds, founding Japan's first Zen temple at Hakata in Kyushu in 1195. He gave some seeds to the monk Myoe, who grew them at Toganoo and then at Uji. The everyday teas came much later and from below: shading was restricted, so commoners drank bancha while the upper classes drank shaded tea, and genmaicha's rice was a filler that made tea cheaper — people's tea. Hojicha's origin is told simply: a Kyoto merchant roasted leftover bancha in 1920. And there is ochazuke, green tea poured over rice with pickles or salmon, said to come from merchants' apprentices eating fast between tasks.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.

Every ingredient in the shop

Explore

Other ways in

Ingredients Every plant, seed, bark and salt in the shop on one page — what it is, why it is in the blend, and where it comes from. See them all Collections Every shelf in the shop on one page — teas by leaf and flavour, spices by kind and cuisine. Open any shelf to see what is on it. Browse the shelves The Showroom The whole shop on one floor — every tea, spice and blend, filtered by what you are after, with the basket beside you. Open the Showroom Elsewhere Seventeen short trips — a place, a moment, a feeling — each with the teas and spices that get you there. Take a trip