Roasted green tea: Hojicha Co launches Japanese loose leaf tea collection

08 Jan 2020 --- Hojicha Co. has launched Hojicha Kukitori, its latest Japanese roasted green tea in its loose-leaf collection. Hojicha Co. currently markets the largest selection of roasted tea products available directly to consumers in North America. The launch comes at a time where Asian food and beverages are booming, as younger consumers crave adventurous and authentic global flavors.

Japanese flavors are featuring strongly in NPD, with attention on this cuisine seeing growth following the Rugby World Cup and continuing to rise ahead of the upcoming 2020 Olympics. Last month, FoodIngredientsFirst reported that Paradise Fruits launched a new “Taste of the East” range at Fi Europe 2019. Eastern flavors and ingredients originating from Japan, such as matcha, yuzu and azuki, are gaining traction in NPD. Meanwhile, green tea remains an area that is still ripe for innovation.

“Even though it’s now easier than ever to discover new food trends on social media from the comfort of your home, tourism has probably contributed the most to move recent trends from Japan to the West. Japanese tourism has exploded over the last decade and is set to increase even more this year. When travelers get back home, they seek the products they enjoyed in Japan, creating domestic demand for the products,” Francois Mathieu Co-Founder at Hojicha Co. tells FoodIngredientsFirst. 

Hojicha Kukitori is a rare and exclusive tea, roasted in small batches from a single tea farm in Kyoto, Japan. The new tea, crafted in fall 2019, is rich in tencha stems. Tencha is a Japanese tea material typically ground into a powder to produce matcha after it has been grown in the shade for a month. The Hojicha Kukitori range has a woody aroma and delicate flavors of toasted pecans. 

“Japanese roasted green tea has been around for a century, but its popularity has increased significantly over the past four years. The flavor is currently used in a few hundred products, from beverages to sweet and savory foods, mainly in Japan. Hojicha is slowly making its way to the West as consumers are increasingly adopting Japanese consumer trends, and as restaurants are looking to attract customers by introducing unique flavors,” Mathieu continues.

Hojicha Kukitori is a rare and exclusive tea, roasted in small batches from a single tea farm in Kyoto, Japan. “It is still the early days of hojicha product development and adoption. With a few exceptions, most products launched have used hojicha as a substitute for matcha, or in addition to it. With its unique aroma and roasted flavor, there’s a lot of room to create entirely new product lines. Some examples we’ve seen so far are hojicha liquor, wine and even perfume,” he explains. 

Mathieu further notes that “these days, matcha is everywhere, but the reality is that the green tea category as a whole only represents a small fraction of tea consumption in the US, where black tea is still the most popular.” 

Also, the matcha trend alone has not changed the fact that little of the tea we consume around the world is from Japan. “Most tea produced in Japan is actually consumed domestically, while China produces about a quarter of international tea exports,” Mathieu comments. “More green tea product options, like hojicha, are going to help Japanese teas and the green tea category in general increase its market share,” he adds. 

There are a lot of other trends emerging in tea, such as bubble tea, for example. “When we started Hojicha Co., we decided to focus strictly on roasted green tea. We looked around and many tea brands carried one hojicha product or two, but nobody specialized in it,” Mathieu notes. “That’s the role we have decided to take.”

“Even though we already offer a wide range of flavors, we are only getting started on our journey to build the largest hojicha store in North America,” he concludes. 

By Elizabeth Green