Hojicha & Matcha at Home: 88 Lattes, Iced Drinks, and Desserts from Japan's Two Great Green Teas

One of these teas has become a luxury. The other one hasn't.Matcha prices have gone vertical. Kyoto tencha auctions went from roughly 5,400 a kilo in 2024 to about 14,500 in 2025 - a 169% jump in a single year - with 2026 estimated near 23,000. Hence the empty shelves and the two-tin purchase limits. Hojicha skips every constraint that makes matcha expensive. It's made from later harvests, from the leaves and stems premium tea sets aside. No shade-growing. No stone mills. Just roasting - which is why it costs a fraction of good matcha, and why you can still walk into a shop and buy some. It also happens to taste like toasted nuts, caramel and cocoa, carries about 8 mg of caffeine against matcha's 70, and is the tea in every Kyoto café soft serve. 88 recipes, split evenly between the two - Hot lattes and milk drinks - einspanner, brown sugar, black sesame, hojicha chai, the dirty latte - Iced and cold drinks - the layered strawberry matcha latte, hojicha boba, salted cream, and the cold brew that converts people - Blended and whipped café specials - frappes, whipped dalgona-style hojicha, affogato - Tea on its own - usucha, koicha, and hojicha brewed the way it's meant to be - Cookies, bars and small bakes - hojicha millionaire's shortbread, matcha financiers, brownies, sablés - Cakes and loaves - hojicha chiffon, matcha castella, banana bread, sticky toffee pudding, and Basque cheesecake in both teas - Chilled desserts - tiramisu, panna cotta, crème brûlée, hojicha milk jam, no-bake cheesecake - Frozen - ice cream, soft serve, granita, swirl pops - Syrups, spreads and mixes to make everything else faster And the technique most tea books skipWhy your green cake came out khaki, and the six things that stop it. Why matcha must never meet boiling water and hojicha positively wants it. What ceremonial, premium and culinary grades actually mean and which to buy for what. How to whisk without lumps, how to store powder so it doesn't go dull, and exactly how much tea a cake needs - because almost every disappointing tea bake is simply underdosed. Every recipe works with either tea, with the conversion given. If matcha is unavailable or has priced itself out where you live, you are not locked out of this book. That's rather the point of it. Produced with AI assistance; reviewed and edited by the author. Contains dairy, eggs, gluten, nuts and soy - check labels if cooking for an allergy. Both teas contain caffeine.