We are about to introduce you to our elusive hōjicha.
But first, we digress.
The Heartache
We rarely ‘lose’ a tea – other than the odd misplaced canister. But to truly lose a tea, to have a treasured brew slip through your fingers – cut off at its source – is vexing and accompanied by a chorus of ongoing heartache. This is what happened with our first hōjicha. After establishing it in the range, singing its praises for a year, and popularising it among clientele, it disappeared from the supply line without a trace. We replaced it with our current hōjicha. To its credit, the current hōjicha is a little more conventional and what people expect; a rich bancha leaf, toasted to a deep brown. Hōjicha is one of those staple teas that, despite not necessarily being an elite leaf, is always very, very good. Just as a standard oolong or jasmine tea at a Chinese restaurant is nothing more than a wonderfully perfect complement, so is hōjicha tea in Japan: brass tacks decent without pretence.
And with this in mind, we believed our current – ‘stand-in’ hōjicha to be perfectly lovely and adequate. But perfectly lovely and adequate isn’t the rubric to which we usually adhere. Like a broken record: at Tour de Tea, the standard is incredibly high – with a small store and modest budget – every tea needs to be quite spectacular. We simply can’t afford to have a tea on the shelf that isn’t going to bolster a reputation of excellence.
Stocking nice teas that are simply ‘good’ would be a PR nightmare. That being said, Tour de Tea does not have a PR department. Or a marketing department. Or an advertising department. Does Tour de Tea even have a budget for these things? Since you asked… No. We rely solely on the quality of our service, our experience and our product to build our reputation. We don’t invest in marketing rhetoric, we invest in our teas which do the talking for us.
We cannot, and do not, expect every single tea to be to everyone’s taste, but to those whom it might appeal – that brew needs to be so beautiful that it elicits excitement and wonder. As such, it was clear the current, perfectly lovely hōjicha was not destined for the long haul.
The Agenda
After months of research and banging our heads on the figurative wall that is the Japanese side of the internet, we paused our search on the grounds of data paralysis, decision fatigue and the respectful observation of a mourning period for what looked like an irretrievable loss. It was only when travelling through Sydney on a whim, and visiting a creaky old Japanese store, that our morale was lifted. While snacking on plum blossom boiled lollies, we chatted about the plantations in Japan, and enquired if they had any teas from the prefectures we were curious to visit. The answer was mostly no – however, the staff diligently went through a chest of old wooden drawers and retrieved a tiny, generic ziplock sandwich bag with some dust leftover in the bottom corner. The region was scribbled on the bag in black felt pen. They had no recollection of how how they came to have it – perhaps a left-over of bulk samples. We smelled it and were resolute. Even the dust had the subtle and bright malty quality we were chasing – furthering the determination to get on the ground in Japan to source this leaf.
As such, we found our way to the south of Japan, beyond the major export centre of Uji, visiting tiny organic plantations flanking volcanic mountains. Making a definitive choice was incredibly difficult, but a tiny organic farm in the east corner of the mountains boasted truly exquisite teas; the hōjichas being among the loveliest we had tried in all of our travels.
About Hōjicha – Ever So Briefly
Hōjicha is a green tea that has been pan-fried, traditionally in a porcelain dish over coal. This was a method of moderating the flavour of lesser-quality tea, which included the bancha leaf and stems of the camellia bush. Hōjicha is a relatively young tea – gracing the official records in the nineteen-twenties. The level of toasting can vary, being on a spectrum of light to dark, which will also affect the flavour profile.
Hōjicha, marvellously, does not come in a single size or shape. It can indeed be pure bancha leaves, or it can have some sticks and stems. Kukicha tea is also mostly stems and twigs – but is not necessarily pan-fried. As such, kukicha is more like a regular green tea, but of the sticky, twiggy persuasion, often with a pleasant buttery and nutty sweetness. However, once toasted, it falls into the category of Hōjicha, becoming a kukihōjicha, where its notes become nuttier and toastier.
Our Hōjicha
As usual, we didn’t make it out cleanly with just one tea. The title is misleading. We sourced two hōjichas – each so distinctly beautiful it was impossible to choose between them.
Our regular hōjicha will be replaced with our Golden Hōjicha. This is a kukihōjicha with spectacular notes of chestnut, peanut, barley and butter. It is not a deeply roasted kukihōjicha, as the quality of the leaves is very high, so a light roasting enhances their quality rather than disguises their foibles, as toasting was historically utilised.
Our second hōjicha is a pure stem tea, also a kukihojicha. This is our first Japanese leaf on the on the premium tea shelf, among our Taiwanese oolongs, hand rolled white teas and first flush darjeeling. Introducing Ōritsu Hōjicha. A premium… twig. We can’t say a premium ‘leaf’ as it’s fundamentally untrue. When tried alongside the several hōjichas we were testing from the plantation, it sang with notes of caramelised nuts and lychee. It’s a little different to physically manage due to the twiggy nature of it – one cannot simply measure out a single heaped teaspoon; it takes a few spoons to decant a serving of it. But it’s worth the extra few seconds of preparation, offering an exquisite nutty, fruity and floral brew.
We are so incredibly excited to share them with you.