Hojicha Powder: How to Use It and How It Differs from Leaf Hojicha

Hojicha powder is roasted Japanese green tea milled to a fine powder, so you drink the whole leaf instead of steeping it and pouring the leaf away. You use it four ways: 1 g stirred into 200 ml of hot water for a plain cup, 2 g whisked with a little hot water and topped with milk for a latte, 2 g dissolved and topped with soda water, or 3–5 g folded into cream, dough or batter. It tastes of caramel, toast and cocoa, and a 30 g pack at €14.90 makes 15 lattes or 30 plain cups.

Two numbers to remember: 1 g of powder for a cup of plain hojicha, 2 g for a latte. Everything else is water temperature and patience with the lumps.

This article is only about the powder: how it differs from leaf hojicha, how to use it, how much to use and what each cup costs. If you want to know what hojicha is and how it tastes, read what is hojicha. If you only want the latte, step by step, read how to make a hojicha latte at home.

The short answer

If you drink hojicha plain, buy the leaf: 3 g in 200 ml costs €0.77 and tastes cleaner than powder in water.
If you drink hojicha with milk, buy the powder: 2 g per latte, no steeping, no strainer, and the roast holds through 200 ml of milk.
If you bake or make desserts, buy the 100 g powder: €0.35 per gram, and 3–5 g flavours a whole batch.

1. What is hojicha powder, and how is it different from leaf hojicha?

Both start as the same roasted leaf. For leaf hojicha the roasted leaf is packed as it is; you steep it and throw the leaf away, so you drink an infusion. For hojicha powder the roasted leaf is ground fine, like matcha, and the powder is the drink. Nothing is filtered out, which changes three things in the cup.

Strength per gram. You taste everything the leaf holds, so 1 g of powder in 200 ml of water tastes about as strong as 3 g of leaf steeped for a minute. That is why the serving sizes differ.

Texture. A powder drink has body. In water it is slightly cloudy and a little creamy; in milk it behaves like cocoa, not like tea. Leaf hojicha is clear and light.

Caffeine. For leaf hojicha the Japanese Standard Tables of Food Composition (MEXT, 2020 edition) give 20 mg of caffeine per 100 ml of a standard infusion, about 40 mg in a 200 ml cup. For the powder there is no published laboratory value. Our product page gives a working estimate of 10–15 mg per gram; it is an estimate, not a lab result, and we will not print it as one. What we can say: a 2 g hojicha latte carries less caffeine than a 2 g bowl of matcha (about 64 mg at MEXT's 32 mg per gram), because the roasted leaf starts with less and the roast drives off more. The caffeine comparison with coffee is in how much caffeine is in matcha.

One more thing it is not: roasted matcha. Matcha is shaded, unroasted leaf. Hojicha powder is unshaded leaf, roasted and then ground. Shops sometimes call it "hojicha matcha" because it is used like matcha; the leaf, the colour and the taste are different. Ours is milled from the same first spring harvest hojicha the Morii family roasts for the leaf pack, which is unusual; most hojicha powder is made from cheaper autumn leaf.

2. How to use hojicha powder: four ways

Plain, hot. Put 1 g (half a teaspoon) in a cup, add 200 ml of water at 80–90 °C and stir or whisk until smooth. It is the quickest way to drink hojicha and the one we use at the teahouse when someone wants a cup in under a minute. Expect a slightly cloudy, toasty cup with more body than the leaf version.

Latte, hot or iced. Whisk 2 g with 30–50 ml of hot water until there are no lumps, then add 150–200 ml of hot or cold milk. Oat milk takes the roast best; cow's milk makes it rounder and sweeter. No bamboo whisk is needed: a small milk frother, or a jar with a lid shaken for 20 seconds, does the job. The full method, with the mistakes to avoid, is in the hojicha latte guide.

Sparkling. Dissolve 2 g in a splash of warm water, pour over ice and top with 200 ml of soda water. A teaspoon of honey or a slice of lemon suits it. This is the summer drink our regulars order instead of an iced latte.

Baking and desserts. Hojicha powder behaves like matcha in a recipe: fold 3–5 g into 200 ml of whipped cream, a chiffon cake, cookie dough, panna cotta or ice cream base. It gives a caramel colour rather than green and does not turn bitter in the oven, which matcha can.

3. Getting it smooth: the three mistakes

Hojicha powder is forgiving on temperature, because the roast has already dealt with the compounds that make green tea bitter in hot water. The problems are mechanical.

Lumps. Powder dropped straight into 200 ml of liquid clumps. Make a paste first: powder plus 30–50 ml of water, whisk, then dilute. A small sieve over the cup removes the rest.

Sediment. It is a whole-leaf drink, so a little settles at the bottom of a cup left standing. Stir before the last sip, or drink it within ten minutes. It is not a fault.

Stale powder. Ground leaf loses aroma faster than whole leaf. Keep the pack sealed, away from light and heat, and use it within three months of opening. If the toast smell has faded to cardboard, the powder is old, not bad; it still works in baking.

I started weighing hojicha powder at the teahouse after a week of lattes that tasted different every day. 2 g on the scale, every time, and the complaints stopped. A teaspoon of this powder is anywhere between 1.5 and 3 g depending on how it is scooped, which is the whole difference between a thin latte and a muddy one.

Hojicha powder, leaf hojicha and matcha compared

Regular prices from our online shop, October 2026. Cost per serving uses the dose in the table. Leaf caffeine is MEXT 2020; the powder has no published value. For reference, Kaubamaja Toidumaailm in Tallinn sold our 100 g hojicha powder for €35.99 in September 2026.

	Hojicha powder	Leaf hojicha	Matcha
What it is	Roasted leaf, milled; you drink all of it	Roasted whole leaf, steeped and discarded	Shaded unroasted leaf, milled
Dose	1 g plain, 2 g latte	3 g per 200 ml	2 g per bowl or latte
Caffeine	No published value; below matcha	About 40 mg per 200 ml	About 64 mg per 2 g
Taste	Caramel, toast, cocoa; creamy	Toasty, light, clear	Umami, sweet, fine bitterness
Price per gram	€0.50 (30 g €14.90), €0.35 (100 g €34.90)	€0.26 (50 g €12.90)	€1.00 (30 g €29.90), €0.75 (100 g €74.90)
Cost per serving	€0.50 plain, €0.99 latte (€0.70 from 100 g)	€0.77	€1.99 (€1.50 from 100 g)

The table explains what the counter sees every day. People who drink hojicha plain stay with the leaf, because it is cheaper per cup and clearer in the glass. People who drink it with milk move to the powder, because a latte from leaf is thin and a latte from powder is not, and because a hojicha latte costs half of a matcha latte. The 100 g pack is for the second group.