A nice cup of hojicha keeps you warm during the colder months. It tastes even better if you boil the hojicha with milk.
Stewing carefully in a small saucepan brings out the flavors of the tea and milk and combines them well. The larger tea leaves have a lot of the aroma and sweetness of hojicha.
Stewed Hojicha Recipe for 1 cup
Ingredients:
- 3g Hojicha loose leaf tea
- 50ml of water
- 100ml of milk (dairy, soy, almond milk, it’s up to you!)
- 1 table spoon of sweetner
Instructions:
- Place the tea leaves and water in a small saucepan.
- Boil the water until the color of the tea comes out well.
- Add the milk and bring to a gentle simmer.
- Add as much or as little sweetener as you like.
- Mix well and pour into a tea cup, straining the tea through a tea strainer.
The Key to Making It
It’s better to add a little more hojicha than you think. Because it contains more twigs, hojicha has more volume for its weight than ordinary sencha leaves.
As a personal preference, milk with more fat is better. In the photo the milk is frothed in a milk former.
Soy milk is also delicious, but to the Japanese author, it sometimes has a savory taste, like soy sauce. The taste is very familiar to Japanese people.
A little added sweetener will make the tea taste gentler. Instead of sugar, you can also add a couple of marshmallows to freshly made hojicha milk tea.
