Japanese Hojicha Roasted Green Tea

Hello Steepsterians! Long time, no see.

(The explanation: Christmas 2010, I ended up with a lot of rough tasting “notes” jotted down on slips of paper that I hadn’t entered on to Steepster. This continued on and on with briefly writing down my thoughts in my moleskine or typing out an actual tealog posting in a wordpad file AND dating everything with the intention of backlogging it up on to Steepster and having a complete catalog of my tea drinking for the past year plus. However, I have slowly come to the realization that this isn’t likely to actually get done (anytime soon) and I miss posting my tasting notes so I’ve scrapped the idea of getting my tealog up-to-date and I’m starting posting again as of February with the teas I drink going forward. I hate to not post the completed tasting notes that I’ve written but I’m a bit of a completionist so I’d end up frantically trying to post everything if I did.)

And now, on to the tea. I picked this up on sale at Earth Fare awhile back not knowing what it was but thinking a roasted green tea sounded like it could be good. I decided to try it yesterday night with Korean leftovers because the regular girl at the Korean place asked me if I wanted a hot tea awhile back on a cold night and has since given me tea with Asian characters and sometimes some English on the tags (twice genmaicha, once oolong) and since the genmaicha, as a toasted rice tea, went well with the Korean, my thinking was that a roasted green tea would as well. And it did.

Just taking the plastic wrapping off of the box of tea, I could already smell the toasty roastiness of it. Steeping instructions recommended 2-5 minutes so I settled on 3:30 for my first try and was quite surprised to find the tea had come out so dark considering the genmaicha has come out a lighter brown and I had expected them to be similar. The toasty roast smell of the steeped tea was lighter than the smell of the bag had been. The taste was much stronger than I expected but still good and tasted pretty much like you’d expect something like this would. Next time I’ll either steep this for less time or use a bigger mug, possibly both, as I’m sure I’ll enjoy this tea more when it’s less strong.

I’m rating this tea a 52 to start – a nice bagged tea. I think it will creep up a few points once I get the steeping time and water quantity adjusted more to my tastes.

This tea has a smell similar to high quality pot more than anything else. It has a decidedly earth flavor profile, and tastes quit coffee-like in flavor. This is most likely due to the fact that the tea leaves are roasted. Not the best tea I’ve ever had, but definitely worth a shot if you want to experience a new taste.

I love this tea – specifically for night time application. I do prefer more subtle and traditional green tea flavors. But this one is a nice change of pace. And it does have a lower caffeine content for better sleep. (although i don’t seem to be too effected by regular greens) Regardless, i recommend that people try this style of green tea.

This doesn’t smell very pleasant but it has a strong Green Tea and hardcore earthy taste. I’m pretty neutral on this tea. I wouldn’t say I LOVE it but it’s good to have if you are looking for something different.