Hojicha substitutes

Barley kernels roasted dark and brewed as a tea, drunk hot and iced across Japan, Korea and China. Naturally caffeine-free and available in most supermarkets now.

Best for

iced hojicha and cold brew, hojicha lattes, caffeine-free drinking and drinks for children, panna cotta, custard and ice cream

The closest match for the roasted, nutty, biscuity flavor that makes hojicha appealing, and it shares the same brown color and complete lack of bitterness. What is missing is the faint green tea backbone underneath, so a barley latte tastes purely toasty and a touch flatter, slightly like a mild coffee substitute. A pinch of matcha or a green teabag brewed alongside puts that backbone back if you have one.

Sencha or bancha blended with toasted and popped brown rice, giving a savory popcorn-like toastiness over a green tea base.

Best for

hot drinking, savory uses such as tea-steamed rice, broths and dashi-style infusions, when you want lower caffeine but not zero

Toasty in a different register: popcorn and cooked rice rather than caramel and cocoa, over a clearly green, vegetal base. It brews pale yellow-green rather than red-brown, so any dish that relied on hojicha for color, such as a latte or an ice cream, will look pale and washed out. Brew at 80 C or 175 F, since the green leaf in it can still turn bitter.

The cupboard answer. It matches hojicha's color and body closely enough for most cooking, provided you underbrew it.

Best for

color and body in cakes, custards and syrups, lattes, iced tea, braises and poaching liquids

Right color, wrong texture on the palate: black tea is tannic and drying and hojicha is smooth and round, so a black tea latte tastes brisk and slightly astringent where hojicha tasted mellow. It is also fully caffeinated, which defeats the point if you chose hojicha for an evening drink. Pull it at two minutes and it comes surprisingly close.

Dry-toast plain sencha or bancha leaves in a heavy pan over medium-low heat, stirring constantly for 4 to 6 minutes until they turn brown and smell of toast, then cool them completely before brewing.

Best for

getting the real thing when no shop stocks it, hot brewing and lattes, desserts where hojicha is the flavor

This is genuinely hojicha, just homemade, and it is the best answer on this list if you have twenty minutes and a pan. Keep the heat moderate and keep the leaves moving, because they scorch fast and burnt tea tastes acrid rather than toasty. Roasting also drives off much of the caffeine, as it does commercially. It will not be quite as evenly roasted as the bagged version, so brew and taste before using it in a dessert.

For recipes calling for hojicha powder, the finely milled version used in lattes, ice cream, cookies and mousse, a roasted grain powder is the nearest available dry substitute.

Best for

hojicha lattes, ice cream, mousse and buttercream, cookies, financiers and loaf cakes

Be realistic here: nothing has hojicha powder's specific toasted-tea flavor, and this is a least-bad option. Roasted barley powder is closest, sweeter and more cereal-like. A grain coffee powder such as an Inka or Caro style works too and tilts mildly toward coffee. Both dissolve more readily than hojicha powder and both are caffeine-free. If you have hojicha leaves but not powder, grind the leaves fine in a spice grinder, which is a much better answer.

Hojicha's own starting material, unroasted.

Best for

hot drinking, when the recipe just needs a light tea liquid

Fresh, grassy and pale green, with none of the roast and rather more astringency and caffeine, so this is the substitution that changes the dish most. In a savory broth or a rice dish it is fine. In a hojicha latte or hojicha ice cream it produces something recognisably different, more like a matcha-adjacent drink. Adding a small pinch of cocoa powder mimics the roasted depth better than adding more tea.