Japanese Green Teas Explained: Sencha, Kabusecha, Genmaicha, Hojicha and Matcha

Sencha, kabusecha, genmaicha, hojicha and matcha all come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis, and in Japan the fresh leaf is almost always steamed rather than pan-fired. What separates them is what happens before and after the steaming: how long the bushes were shaded, whether the leaf was roasted, whether rice was added, and whether the leaf was ground to a powder or left whole.

Five teas, one plant. Shade makes a tea sweeter and higher in caffeine. Roasting makes it nutty and softer. Grinding means you drink the whole leaf. Leaf tea: 2–3 g per 200 ml. Matcha: 2 g per bowl.

This article explains the five types we grow and sell: how each is made, how it tastes and how to brew it. If you only want matcha, read our matcha powder guide. For caffeine in detail, read how much caffeine is in matcha.

The short answer

If you have never had Japanese green tea, start with sencha: it is the everyday tea of Japan and the reference for everything else.
If you find green tea too grassy or bitter, choose genmaicha or hojicha: roasting removes most of the sharpness.
If you want the fullest flavour and the biggest lift, choose kabusecha as leaf or matcha as powder: both are shaded before harvest.

1. What makes Japanese green tea Japanese

Green tea is unoxidised tea. To stop oxidation, the fresh leaf is heated within hours of picking. China mostly pan-fires; Japan mostly steams, for roughly 30 to 120 seconds. Steaming keeps the leaf deep green and gives Japanese tea its vegetal character: spinach, seaweed, fresh peas, rather than the toasted-nut notes of a Chinese green.

The second thing to know is the harvest. The first picking of the year, ichibancha, happens in late April and May and gives the sweetest, most aromatic leaf. Later pickings are coarser and more bitter. Every tea below is first harvest, including the hojicha, which is unusual: most hojicha is made from later pickings or stems.

The third is the farm. Ours come from one fourth-generation family farm in Kizugawa, southern Kyoto.

2. Sencha and kabusecha: sunlight versus shade

Sencha is grown in full sun, steamed, rolled into thin needles and dried. It is the most common tea in Japan. Brewed well it is fresh, slightly sweet and slightly astringent, with a clear yellow-green liquor. Use 2–3 g per 200 ml at 60–80 °C for 60 seconds. The same leaves give three infusions; the second is often the best.

Kabusecha means covered tea. About two weeks before harvest the bushes are covered with cloth. With less light the plant keeps more chlorophyll and more of the amino acid L-theanine, and converts less of it into bitter catechins. The result is a darker leaf, a greener cup and a rounder, brothy taste the Japanese call umami. It sits between sencha and gyokuro, which is shaded for three weeks or more and costs several times as much. Brew kabusecha cooler, 60–70 °C, for 60–90 seconds.

Shading also raises caffeine. The MEXT food composition tables list a standard sencha infusion at 20 mg caffeine per 100 ml and gyokuro at 160 mg per 100 ml, brewed much stronger. Kabusecha has no official figure; expect it above sencha and well below gyokuro.

3. Genmaicha and hojicha: the roasted teas

Genmaicha is green tea mixed with roasted brown rice, historically a way to stretch expensive leaf. The rice adds a warm cereal sweetness and dilutes the tea, so a cup holds about half the caffeine of sencha: MEXT lists 10 mg per 100 ml. It forgives hot water. Brew 2–3 g per 200 ml at 80–90 °C for 30–60 seconds. Ours uses glutinous brown rice grown and hand-roasted on the farm.

Hojicha is green tea roasted at high heat until the leaf turns brown. Roasting drives off the grassy notes and replaces them with caramel, toast and a little smoke. Roasting softens the tea but does not make it caffeine-free: the MEXT infusion value is 20 mg per 100 ml, the same as sencha at standard strength. A cup of hojicha still has less caffeine than a bowl of matcha, because you drink an infusion, not the leaf. Brew it hot, 90–100 °C, for 30 seconds. Our strong-roast hojicha is made from first-harvest leaf, so it stays smooth at this roast level.

At the teahouse, hojicha is the tea I hand to people who tell me they do not like green tea. Most of them finish the cup and ask what it was.

Hojicha also comes as a powder, used for lattes and baking the way matcha is; see our hojicha latte recipe. Its taste, caffeine and brewing in full are in what is hojicha.

4. Matcha and tencha: the tea you eat

Matcha starts as tencha: leaf shaded for about three weeks, steamed, dried flat without rolling and stripped of stems and veins. Tencha is then ground on granite mills to a powder finer than flour. Because you whisk the powder into water and drink all of it, matcha delivers everything the leaf contains. A 2 g bowl carries about 64 mg of caffeine, using the MEXT value of 32 mg per gram; a 200 ml cup of sencha at standard strength carries about 40 mg.

The taste is concentrated: intense umami, sweetness and a fine bitterness that should never be harsh. Whisk 2 g with 70 ml of water at 70–80 °C. We measured the gap between supermarket packs and first-harvest Uji matcha in supermarket matcha compared. What a good bowl should taste like, in order, is in what is matcha and what does it taste like.

How the five teas compare

Caffeine per 100 ml is the MEXT Standard Tables of Food Composition 2020 infusion value; matcha is per gram of powder. Prices are our regular prices, September 2026. Cost per cup uses 2.5 g of leaf or 2 g of matcha.

Tea	How it is made	Caffeine (MEXT)	Water, time	Price, per cup
Sencha	Full sun, steamed, rolled	20 mg/100 ml	60–80 °C, 60 s	50 g €10.90, €0.55
Kabusecha	Shaded 2 weeks, steamed, rolled	No official value; above sencha	60–70 °C, 60–90 s	50 g €12.90, €0.65
Genmaicha	Sencha plus roasted brown rice	10 mg/100 ml	80–90 °C, 30–60 s	50 g €12.90, €0.65
Hojicha	Green tea roasted brown	20 mg/100 ml	90–100 °C, 30 s	50 g €12.90, €0.65
Matcha	Shaded 3 weeks, stone-ground tencha	32 mg per g (≈64 mg per 2 g bowl)	70–80 °C, whisked	30 g €29.90, €1.99

Read the table as a spectrum. From genmaicha to matcha the flavour gets stronger, the caffeine rises and the price per cup climbs from about 60 cents to two euros. There is no best tea here, only the one that fits the hour.