At Ueshima Coffee Company, we’ve always believed great café culture is built on craftsmanship, balance, and meaningful moments of connection.

Why We Believe Roasted Japanese Tea Could Be the Next Big Trend

For years, matcha has led the conversation around Japanese tea in cafés across the world. 

Its vibrant colour, wellness appeal, and unmistakable flavour helped introduce a new generation of customers to Japanese drinks culture. But recently, another tea has been quietly capturing attention in specialty cafés and coffee shops: hojicha.

Warm, roasted, and deeply comforting, hojicha feels perfectly suited to the direction modern café culture is moving in.

Who knows if it will be bigger than matcha, it’s unlikely, but it’s an interesting new entrant to the scene and there’s always room for more!  

What Makes Hojicha Different?

Unlike matcha, which is made from finely ground green tea leaves, hojicha is created by roasting green tea at high temperatures. This roasting process transforms the tea completely, creating rich aromas and flavours reminiscent of caramel, toasted nuts, cocoa, and subtle smoke.

Roasting is central to coffee craftsmanship. It unlocks sweetness, balance, complexity, and depth. Hojicha undergoes a similar transformation, producing a flavour experience that feels naturally familiar to coffee drinkers while still offering something entirely distinct.

It also delivers a softer, gentler caffeine experience than either coffee or matcha, something that certain customers are increasingly looking for. Particularly when you don’t want full decaf!

Why Coffee Drinkers Are Embracing Hojicha

Today’s café customers want more than caffeine. They are searching for moments of calm, comfort, and ritual throughout the day.

That shift is changing café menus everywhere.

At Ueshima, we’ve seen growing interest in drinks that feel indulgent and flavourful without necessarily being intense. Hojicha answers that demand beautifully.

Its roasted character makes it approachable for coffee drinkers, particularly those who may find matcha’s grassy notes more challenging. There’s a warmth and familiarity to hojicha that instantly feels comforting.

Hojicha allows for;

• Lower-caffeine alternatives

• Elevated tea experiences

• Japanese-inspired café culture

• Slower, more mindful moments

In many ways, hojicha reflects a broader movement toward balance in modern hospitality. 

Anything that is going to bring excitement and interest to our cafés, shops and high streets at the moment can only be a good thing! 

Hojicha at the London Coffee Festival!

One of the reasons we find hojicha so exciting is its versatility. 

Its roasted flavour profile pairs exceptionally well with milk, making it ideal for creamy lattes and iced drinks. But beyond tea-based beverages, hojicha also opens up creative opportunities alongside coffee itself.

At this year's London Coffee Festival we experimented with hojicha ourselves as part of our limited edition Japanese-inspired menu with our "HOLD MY HOJICHA"... a delicious latte made by mixing hojicha with brown sugar. It proved very popular! 

If you were there in London, let us know if you tried it on our Instagram!

Our HOLD MY HOJICHA shows that for coffee professionals, hojicha offers innovation without feeling disconnected from the core language of specialty coffee. The sensory overlap; roast, sweetness, body, balance somehow feels intuitive.

Why Hojicha Feels So Relevant Right Now

Coffee and café culture continues to evolve.

For years, the industry focused heavily on intensity, stronger coffee, brighter acidity, higher caffeine, faster consumption. Today, we see customers gravitating toward experiences that feel more intentional and comforting.

Hojicha captures that mood perfectly.

Its gentle warmth and roasted complexity encourage people to slow down and savour the moment. It offers a different kind of energy: calmer, softer, and more grounded.

At Ueshima Coffee Company, those values feel closely connected to our Japanese heritage and our philosophy around hospitality. We believe cafés should create moments of pause and comfort, not just fuel productivity.

Hojicha naturally belongs within that experience.

So, Is Hojicha the New Matcha?

Matcha opened the door for Japanese tea culture in cafés around the world, and its popularity shows no sign of disappearing. But we think hojicha represents the next chapter.

If matcha brought vibrancy and energy to café culture, hojicha brings warmth and calm. And as customers increasingly seek balance and comfort in their daily rituals, we believe roasted Japanese tea has enormous potential within the coffee industry. 

For cafés looking to offer something distinctive, premium, and deeply comforting, hojicha may become one of the defining drinks trends of the years ahead.

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