And All About Hojiki
Brewing tea is easy, but does your Hojicha tea taste bitter or bland after brewing? Knowing how to brew is great, but how about the quality of your Hojicha leaves? Some of it in the stores is almost black and seeing this color means that the leaves are over-roasted – that is why it produced a bitter taste. Hojicha should have little to no bitterness, since it is a lightly-roasted green tea. Let’s check out how to roast it, plus how to find your preferred Hojiki to ship to your doorstep.
What is Hojiki?
Hojiki, Houjiki, or Houroku are three names for a small hollow teapot, made of clay or ceramic, used for roasting Hojicha leaves. There’s a hole on the handle for the steam. You will need a potholder or a thick cloth to hold the handle during and after roasting.
How to Roast Hojicha?
Add a few teaspoons of Hojicha into the Hojiki. Turn on the stove to low heat. If the hojiki gets hot, slightly shake it or toast the leaves every minute to avoid burning the leaves. When you smell the tea aroma, see a little bit of smoke and the leaves are getting dark, keep shaking the pot for a few minutes. When the leaves turn dark green and a bit toasty brown, turn off the stove and set aside the hojiki. Since the hojiki is too hot, pour the leaves immediately into the bowl because if they stay in the hojiki, there will be a chance that they will be overcooked even when the hojiki is off of the stove.
The Hojicha tea is now ready to brew! Steep these for 30 seconds to 1 ½ minutes depending on your taste, pour in teacups, and enjoy! For more information, check out Ideal Hojicha preparation.
The basics:
- 1 teaspoon or 2g Hojicha leaves per cup serving
- 90 degrees Celsius water for steeping
Finding a Hojiki Online and Ordering
Now, we have to find a Hojiki that suits our curiosity and lifestyle. Just a few clicks and your new Hojiki will be on its way so we can roast and drink fresh Hojicha tea. This can be thrilling when you order on your own online from Japan to the US!
Why Can’t I Just Type Hojiki / Houjiki / Houroku at Amazon?
The result you will get if you type these words are zero to possibly some new, rare Hojiki finds. The keywords you can search are “ceramic tea roaster” or “tea roaster ceramic,” but you can usually only see one or two that are similar to Hojiki. However these products have a smaller hole than the Hojiki so you will have a hard time adding and removing the tea leaves, since these small pots are meant to roast coffee beans.
Ordering Houjiki and Shipping to You
The easiest way is to go to Amazon.co.jp, the Japanese Amazon. If the site does not automatically translate to English, go to the flag icon on the right side beside the search icon, and choose English-EN.
Copy this text: 焙じ機 and paste into the search bar.
Now there are many houjiki choices. You can now choose your preferred Houjiki.
After choosing the one you like, you can look for Japan to US forwarding services like Forward2me, Tenso or any other shipping service that is the most convenient to you.
You can also look for 焙じ機 on https://shopping.yahoo.co.jp/ and click the Google Translate icon (when using Google Chrome) to translate the webpage into English.
Ordering Via Amazon (Using Credit or Debit Card)
Click Buy Now and create your Amazon Japan account.
Follow the instructions, then as a payment method, under Credit Cards, click add a credit or debit Card.
After that, you will see your order, the international shipping cost and the total payment.
Click Place your Order and that’s it!
Photo “Hojicha” is copyright under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License to the photographer T. Tseng and is being posted unaltered (source)
