Hojicha vs Matcha: What Actually Separates Them (2026)

By Christian, Founder of One with Tea. I buy all three of these teas directly from Japanese producers, so I have no reason to crown a winner.

Hojicha and matcha come from the same plant. What separates them is a set of decisions made months apart: when the leaf is picked, whether it grew under shade or full sun, and whether it gets stone milled into powder or roasted over heat until it turns brown. Everything you taste follows from those three choices.

The short answer: matcha is shaded young leaf, stone milled and whisked whole, so it carries more caffeine, a savory vegetal taste and a higher price. Hojicha is usually sun-grown, later-harvest leaf and stem, roasted until brown and steeped, so it is lower in caffeine, toasty and cheaper. (Hojicha is also spelled houjicha or hōjicha, and often typed as hochija. Same tea.)

Most comparisons of these two teas are written by someone who sells one of them. I stock hojicha, genmaicha and several grades of matcha, which means the honest answer here is allowed to be "it depends," and it usually is.

Key Takeaways

• Matcha, hojicha and genmaicha are all Camellia sinensis. The differences come from shading, harvest timing and processing, not from different plants.
• Japan's Standard Tables of Food Composition list brewed hojicha and brewed sencha at the same figure, 20 mg of caffeine per 100 ml, from nearly the same leaf-to-water ratio, with genmaicha at 10 mg. Hojicha is not caffeine free.
• Matcha lands higher per serving because you swallow the whole leaf. The same tables list dry matcha at 3.2 g of caffeine per 100 g, so a 2 g bowl is about 64 mg and a 200 ml mug of hojicha about 40 mg.
• Hojicha costs less because it uses later harvest leaf and stem and skips the deveining and stone milling that matcha requires.
• Genmaicha is green tea blended with roasted rice. Matcha-iri genmaicha, with matcha dusted through it, is a different product again.
• Per serving, neither tea is a nutritional event: a 2 g bowl of matcha is about 5 kcal and 0.6 g of protein, and brewed hojicha lists 0 kcal.

What is the difference between hojicha and matcha?

Matcha is a shade grown green tea, steamed and stone ground into a powder that you whisk into water and drink whole. Hojicha is a green tea roasted over high heat until it turns reddish brown, then steeped and strained like an ordinary loose leaf tea. Matcha is vivid green, thick and savory. Hojicha is amber brown, thin bodied and toasty.

That is the short version, and it is where most articles stop. The part worth understanding is why, because it explains the price gap, the caffeine gap and the flavor gap all at once.

Same plant, three different decisions

Every true tea on earth, including all three teas in this article, comes from Camellia sinensis. There is no hojicha bush. There is no genmaicha plant. A producer takes leaf from the same fields and sends it down different paths.

	Matcha	Hojicha	Genmaicha
Grown	Under shade for weeks before picking	Full sun, later in the season	Full sun, sencha or bancha leaf
Part of the plant	Young leaf, stems and veins removed	Mature leaf, stems and twigs included	Whole leaf, plus roasted rice
Defining step	Stone milled into powder	Roasted at high heat	Blended with toasted brown rice
How you drink it	Whisked, whole leaf consumed	Steeped and strained	Steeped and strained
Color in the cup	Opaque bright green	Clear reddish brown	Pale gold
Flavor	Savory, creamy, vegetal	Toasty, nutty, faintly sweet	Grassy with popcorn and grain

Read down the "defining step" row and you have the whole article. Shade and stone for matcha, fire for hojicha, rice for genmaicha.

How matcha is made, and why shade matters

Roughly three to four weeks before harvest, matcha fields get covered. Producers lay screens or straw over the rows and cut the sunlight dramatically. The plant responds by producing more chlorophyll to chase what light remains, which is where the electric green comes from, and by holding on to more of the amino acids that give matcha its savory depth instead of converting them into astringent compounds.

Shading is not a small tweak. In a controlled trial growing tea plants under 85 and 95 percent shade, researchers found that shading raised theanine and raised caffeine while lowering the polyphenols behind astringency, which is the chemistry behind matcha's mellow, savory character (Chen et al., "Effect of Shading on the Morphological, Physiological, and Biochemical Characteristics as Well as the Transcriptome of Matcha Green Tea," International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2022). Hold on to that caffeine detail. It matters later.

After picking, the leaf is steamed to stop oxidation, dried, then stripped of stems and veins. What is left is called tencha, and tencha is the only thing that becomes real matcha. It goes to a granite mill that turns slowly enough to avoid heating the powder, which is why authentic milling is measured in grams per hour rather than kilos. If you want that process in depth, we wrote about what stone grinding actually does to matcha, and about what ceremonial grade means in practice.

For where this sits on the map, see which Japanese prefectures actually grow the tea.

How hojicha is made, and what the roast actually does

Hojicha starts where matcha does not: later in the season, in full sun, using leaf that a matcha producer would never send to the mill. Bancha and sencha material, often including stems and twigs, goes into a roaster.

The roast is the entire point. Roasted Japanese green tea is processed at roughly 160 to 180 degrees Celsius, and that heat rearranges the leaf's chemistry, forming pyrazines, pyrroles and furans, the volatile compounds responsible for hojicha's toasted aroma (Qin and Ketnawa, "Exploring the Bioaccessibility of Roasted Japanese Green Tea," Foods, 2025). Catechins, the compounds behind green tea's bitterness and astringency, partly break down and change under that heat, and the same study notes the roast brings out a caramel and nutty aroma while lowering astringency and bitterness. That is why hojicha tastes round and sweet where sencha tastes sharp.

I have watched this done in a horoku, the small ceramic pan Japanese households have used for generations, held over a flame and shaken by hand until the green leaf goes brown and the room fills with something close to the smell of roasting chestnuts. It takes a couple of minutes. Watching it happen is the moment hojicha stops being an abstraction.

For a fuller tour of the tea itself, see our guide to what hojicha is and how to brew it.

Roast your own hojicha (and kaga bocha) at home

You can make hojicha in a dry frying pan in a few minutes: toast a small handful of green tea over medium heat, keep it moving, and stop when the leaf turns reddish brown and smells like roasted nuts. It will not match a factory roaster's evenness, but it is the fastest way to taste what the roast does, and the kitchen smells wonderful.

1. Pick your leaf. Sencha gives a classic leaf hojicha. Kukicha, the stems and twigs, roasts into a stem hojicha in the style of kaga bocha, the roasted stem tea of Ishikawa Prefecture, prized for an elegant aroma and little astringency (Hoshino Resorts, Kanazawa guide).
2. Heat a clean, dry pan. No oil. A heavy skillet or a ceramic horoku both work. Medium heat, not high.
3. Keep it moving. Add enough leaf to cover the base in a thin layer and shake or stir constantly. Green leaf goes olive, then tan, then reddish brown.
4. Pull it early. The moment it smells toasty and sweet, tip it onto a plate to stop the cooking. A burnt, acrid note means it went too far. Stems forgive more than leaf.
5. Brew it fresh. Hot water straight off the boil suits roasted tea. The toasty aroma is at its best right after roasting, so roast small batches and drink them soon.

If you would rather skip the pan, our organic hojicha powder is already roasted and milled, ready for a latte.

Where does genmaicha fit?

Genmaicha is green tea, usually sencha or bancha, blended with roasted brown rice. Some of the rice pops during toasting, which is why it is sometimes nicknamed popcorn tea. The rice is often said to have started as a way to stretch expensive leaf further, and it stayed on the menu because it genuinely tastes good: grain and toast underneath a green tea body.

There is a distinction worth knowing before you buy. Matcha-iri genmaicha has matcha powder dusted through the blend, which turns the liquor cloudy green and pushes both the color and the caffeine up. Plain genmaicha does not. They sit on shelves next to each other with nearly identical names, so check the label. We stock plain organic genmaicha and genmaicha with matcha as separate products for exactly this reason, and our guide to genmaicha, its caffeine and how to brew it goes deeper.

Against matcha, genmaicha is the opposite tea in almost every way. Matcha is concentrated, whisked, whole leaf, and asks for attention. Genmaicha is diluted by design, steeped, strained, and asks for nothing. It is the tea you drink with lunch.

Is hojicha powder just burnt matcha?

No. Hojicha powder is roasted green tea ground fine, and matcha is shaded tencha stone milled without any roast. They are different leaf with a different step in the middle, so hojicha is not matcha that went too far.

• Leaf. Matcha is shaded young leaf, deveined into tencha. Hojicha is usually sun-grown, later-harvest leaf and stem.
• Heat. Matcha is steamed, dried and milled, never roasted. Hojicha is roasted on purpose at roughly 160 to 180 degrees Celsius, and the roast is where the toasted aroma comes from.
• Powder. Hojicha powder is the whole roasted leaf, ground. Matcha is tencha, stone milled.
• In the cup. Matcha whisks into an opaque, savory green bowl. Hojicha powder goes into a toasty brown latte, and hojicha leaf steeps clear reddish brown.

Preparation is where people mix them up. You whisk matcha, and you can whisk hojicha powder or stir it into milk the same way, but the cup tastes toasty rather than vegetal. Hojicha leaf is steeped and strained like any loose leaf tea.

Neither one is oxidized the way black tea is. Japan's national food composition tables file hojicha and matcha together under green tea and keep oolong and black tea in a separate fermented-tea group (MEXT, beverages chapter).

Does hojicha or matcha have more caffeine?

Matcha, comfortably. But the reason is not the one you have probably read.

Japan's Standard Tables of Food Composition, the national reference maintained by MEXT, list brewed teas at these levels, each brewed to MEXT's own recipe:

Look at hojicha and sencha. They are the same number, and it is a fair comparison: MEXT brews sencha at 10 g of leaf in 430 ml and hojicha at 15 g in 650 ml, both at 90 degrees Celsius, which is about 23 g of leaf per litre either way. That should stop you, because every other page on this subject will tell you roasting burns the caffeine out of hojicha.

It mostly does not. Caffeine sublimes at 178 degrees Celsius (PubChem, Caffeine, CID 2519) and hojicha roasting runs at roughly 160 to 180 degrees (Qin and Ketnawa, Foods, 2025), so the roast sits right at the edge of where caffeine can leave the leaf. The national figures show no roasting penalty: roasted hojicha lists the same caffeine as unroasted sencha. MEXT does not say which leaf went into each sample, so this compares the finished teas rather than testing the roast on its own.

The bigger factor looks like the leaf that goes into the roaster. A peer reviewed analysis of the Benifuki cultivar found caffeine in final picking infusions 54 to 66 percent lower than in third picking infusions in four matched comparisons, roughly 43 to 45 micromolar against 94 to 133 (Wakamatsu et al., "Catechin and caffeine contents in green tea at different harvest periods," Food Science & Nutrition, 2019). Hojicha is usually made from late-harvest leaf and stems, so its low caffeine is more likely a leaf story than a fire story.

Matcha runs the opposite direction on both counts. It is shaded, which raises caffeine in the leaf, and you drink the leaf rather than an infusion of it. Nothing stays behind in a strainer.

MEXT lists matcha as a dry powder rather than a brewed drink: 3.2 g of caffeine per 100 g, or 32 mg per gram. That is why published matcha numbers scatter so widely. The dose depends on how much powder lands in the bowl, so here is the arithmetic for the scoops people actually use, beside one 200 ml mug of each steeped tea.

One serving	Caffeine
Matcha, 1.5 g of powder	about 48 mg
Matcha, 2 g of powder	about 64 mg
Matcha, 4 g of powder	about 128 mg
Sencha, 200 ml mug	about 40 mg
Hojicha, 200 ml mug	about 40 mg
Genmaicha, 200 ml mug	about 20 mg

Calculated from MEXT: matcha at 3.2 g of caffeine per 100 g of powder, steeped teas at their per-100 ml figures. MEXT's recipe is about 23 g of leaf per litre, roughly 4.6 g in a 200 ml mug, which is a strong brew, so a lighter pour has less.

Our own cross tea caffeine chart puts a generous matcha serving near 70 mg, which lines up with the 2 g row. We unpack the dose question in is matcha caffeinated, and for the full ladder of gentle teas, see our guide to low-caffeine Japanese green teas.

One gap: MEXT has no entry for hojicha powder. Powder is the whole roasted leaf, so a hojicha latte is closer to matcha's situation than to a steeped mug, and I would rather say there is no national figure than invent one. Check the tin.

Why is hojicha so much cheaper than matcha?

Because almost every expensive step in matcha production is a step hojicha skips.

• Shading. Covering fields for weeks costs material and labor, and it lowers yield.
• Young leaf only. Matcha wants first flush leaf, the smallest and most limited part of the year's crop. Hojicha uses later pickings, which are abundant.
• Deveining. Turning dried leaf into tencha means removing stems and veins. Hojicha welcomes the stems. They roast beautifully.
• Stone milling. Granite mills produce matcha slowly, by design, because speed generates heat and heat ruins the powder. Roasting is fast.

Four cost centers, none of which hojicha pays. The price gap is not a quality judgment, it is an accounting of labor. A well made hojicha is a genuinely excellent tea that simply costs less to produce.

For the market context behind this, see what Japanese green tea actually costs at origin.

Hojicha vs matcha nutrition: what is in each cup?

Per cup, almost nothing, and the difference is mostly about what you swallow. Matcha is a powder you drink whole, so a 2 g bowl carries about 5 kcal, 0.6 g of protein and 0.8 g of dietary fibre. Brewed hojicha is 99.8 percent water and lists 0 kcal. The numbers below come from Japan's food composition tables, scaled to one serving.

Per serving	Matcha, 2 g of powder	Hojicha, 200 ml brewed
Energy	4.7 kcal	0 kcal
Protein	0.6 g	trace
Dietary fibre	0.8 g	not listed
Potassium	54 mg	48 mg
Calcium	8 mg	4 mg
Folate	24 µg	26 µg
Vitamin K	58 µg	0 µg

Source: MEXT, matcha powder, food no. 16035 (per 100 g: 237 kcal, protein 29.6 g, fibre 38.5 g, potassium 2,700 mg, calcium 420 mg, folate 1,200 µg, vitamin K 2,900 µg) and hojicha infusion, food no. 16040 (per 100 g: 0 kcal, potassium 24 mg, calcium 2 mg, folate 13 µg, vitamin K 0). Serving values are our arithmetic, with a 200 ml mug taken as 200 g.

Folate comes out level. Everything else shows what drinking the leaf does: matcha brings the protein, fibre and vitamin K that a strainer leaves behind. None of this makes either tea a meal, and it says nothing about benefits, which is a different question.

The same gap applies as with caffeine: MEXT has no entry for hojicha powder, so I will not put numbers on a hojicha latte. The label on the tin is the honest source, and milk or sweetener will change the calories far more than the tea does.

Is hojicha healthier than matcha, and do they taste alike?

On taste, no, and it is not close. Matcha is thick, savory and vegetal with a lingering sweetness. Hojicha is light bodied, toasty and nutty, closer in aroma to roasted grain than to anything green. People who dislike matcha's vegetal edge often love hojicha immediately, and that is the most useful thing I can tell you about the pair.

Is hojicha sweeter than matcha? Neither cup has sugar, and each gets its sweetness from a different place. Shading holds on to theanine and lowers the polyphenols behind astringency, which is the chemistry behind matcha's mellow flavor (Chen et al., 2022). Roasting lowers bitterness and builds a caramel and nutty aroma, which is why hojicha reads sweet and round (Qin and Ketnawa, 2025). Matcha gives you a lingering savory sweetness, hojicha a toasty, low-bitterness one.

On "healthier," the honest answer is that they offer different things and the question is really about what you want from the cup. Matcha delivers more of the leaf's compounds simply because you consume all of it. Roasting partly breaks down catechins, so hojicha carries fewer of them, while the roast forms its own aroma compounds. Research on roasted Japanese green tea has looked at how these transformed compounds behave through digestion, and the picture is nuanced rather than a ranking (Qin and Ketnawa, Foods, 2025).

I would not choose between these teas on a health basis. I would choose on caffeine and on the hour of the day, which is a decision you can actually feel.

Which should you drink, and when?

This is the real question, so here is how I actually use them.

Matcha in the morning. It is the one with enough caffeine to carry a working session, and the amino acid content makes that energy feel steady rather than jagged. It also asks for two minutes of whisking, which is a small ritual worth keeping.

Hojicha in the evening. Low enough in caffeine that I can drink a full pot at nine at night, gentle enough that it does not sit heavily, and the roasted aroma does something to a room that green tea does not. If you have ever wanted a warm drink after dinner and found green tea too sharp and coffee out of the question, this is the tea.

Genmaicha with food. The rice gives it enough body to stand up to a meal without competing with it, and it is the easiest of the three to serve to someone who does not drink much tea.

You do not have to pick one. These teas are not competitors, they are three answers to three different moments. If you are still deciding between green teas more broadly, our comparisons of matcha and sencha and of gyokuro and matcha cover the neighboring choices.

How we handle all three at One with Tea

We source organic Japanese leaf directly from producers and carry organic hojicha powder, organic genmaicha, and ceremonial grade matcha, because a tea cupboard that only holds one of these is a cupboard that only works at one time of day.

Browse the full matcha collection or our low-caffeine teas if the evening cup is the one you are shopping for.

If you run a cafe or shop and are building a Japanese tea program rather than buying a single tin, we work with wholesale partners directly. Reach out and tell us what you are pouring.

Frequently asked questions

Is hojicha healthier than matcha?

They are different rather than ranked. Matcha delivers more of the leaf's compounds because you consume the whole leaf instead of an infusion. Hojicha's roast breaks down some catechins and creates new compounds in their place. Choose on caffeine and time of day rather than on a health ranking.

Does hojicha have less caffeine than matcha?

Yes. Japan's national tables list brewed hojicha at 20 mg of caffeine per 100 ml, about 40 mg in a 200 ml mug at the same strength. Matcha powder lists 32 mg per gram, so a 2 g bowl is about 64 mg and a 4 g scoop about 128 mg.

Who should not drink hojicha?

Hojicha still contains caffeine, around 20 mg per 100 ml in Japan's national composition tables, so anyone limiting caffeine on medical advice should count it rather than assume it is caffeine free. If you are pregnant, managing a caffeine sensitivity, or taking medication that interacts with caffeine, ask your doctor about your total daily intake.

Is hojicha burnt matcha?

No. Hojicha is roasted green tea, usually made from sun-grown, later-harvest leaf and stem. Matcha is shaded young leaf that is steamed, deveined into tencha and stone milled, never roasted. Hojicha powder is roasted tea ground fine, not matcha that went too far.

Why is hojicha so much cheaper than matcha?

Hojicha uses later harvest leaf and stems and skips shading, deveining and stone milling, which are the four most expensive steps in matcha production. Roasting is fast and inexpensive by comparison.

Does hojicha taste the same as matcha?

No. Matcha is thick, savory and vegetal. Hojicha is light, toasty and nutty, with an aroma closer to roasted grain. People who find matcha too vegetal often prefer hojicha straight away.

Is hojicha sweeter than matcha?

They get their sweetness differently. Matcha's comes from shading, which holds on to theanine and lowers astringent polyphenols. Hojicha's comes from the roast, which lowers bitterness and builds a caramel and nutty aroma.

Does hojicha have fewer calories than matcha?

Per cup, both are close to zero. Japan's tables list brewed hojicha at 0 kcal per 100 g and matcha powder at 237 kcal per 100 g, which is about 5 kcal in a 2 g serving. Milk and sweetener change the numbers far more than the tea does.

What is the difference between genmaicha and matcha?

Genmaicha is steeped green tea leaf blended with roasted brown rice, strained before drinking, and low in caffeine at roughly 10 mg per 100 ml. Matcha is shade grown leaf stone milled into powder and whisked into water, so you consume the leaf itself. Matcha-iri genmaicha sits between them, with matcha dusted through the blend.

Can you make a latte with hojicha?

Yes, and hojicha powder is made for it. The roasted flavor holds up against milk better than a delicate steeped tea does, and it does not need sweetening the way a sharper green tea often does.

One last thing

If you have only ever had matcha, hojicha will surprise you, and the surprise is the point. Same plant, same fields, sometimes the same farm, and a completely different cup because someone decided to put the leaf over a fire instead of under a stone.

That is most of what I love about Japanese tea. The plant is simple. The decisions are not.

Christian
Founder, One with Tea

Sources

• Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan, 2015 edition (7th revised), 2017 supplement, chapter 2 beverages, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Caffeine remarks and infusion recipes for gyokuro, matcha powder, sencha, hojicha and genmaicha. mext.go.jp (PDF)
• Standard Tables of Food Composition in Japan, 8th edition supplemented 2023, MEXT food database. Matcha powder (16035): fooddb.mext.go.jp. Hojicha infusion (16040): fooddb.mext.go.jp
• PubChem Compound Summary, Caffeine, CID 2519, National Library of Medicine (sublimation point, 178 °C). pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Wakamatsu et al., "Catechin and caffeine contents in green tea at different harvest periods and their metabolism in miniature swine," Food Science & Nutrition, 2019. PMC6694591
• Qin W. and Ketnawa S., "Exploring the Bioaccessibility of Roasted Japanese Green Tea: Impact of Simulated Gastrointestinal Digestion," Foods, 14(2):311, 2025. PMC11764797
• Hoshino Resorts, "Four hojicha cafes in Kanazawa," MICHIKUSA Guide (kaga bocha, Ishikawa Prefecture). en.hoshinoresorts.com
• Chen X. et al., "Effect of Shading on the Morphological, Physiological, and Biochemical Characteristics as Well as the Transcriptome of Matcha Green Tea," International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23(22):14169, 2022. PubMed 36430647