Evening is when many of us reach for Hojicha. The day is still sitting in your shoulders, dinner is over, and you want something warm without the edge that coffee can bring. The cup meets you with roasted grain, a little sweetness, and a softness that feels settled from the first sip.
That is also when the question of Hojicha caffeine tends to appear. You want flavor. You want warmth. You do not want to lie awake replaying the day. Hojicha often seems like the easy answer, and in many cases it is. Still, "low caffeine" is not the same as "no caffeine," and those two ideas get blurred all the time.
Our team runs into this often when we talk with tea drinkers who love roasted teas but want to be careful in the evening. Hojicha is usually a gentler choice, but that qualifier matters. The real picture sits in the numbers, and in the leaf itself.
The caffeine in your cup
According to the Japanese Standard Tables of Food Composition, brewed Hojicha contains about 20 mg of caffeine per 100 ml. In a typical 150 ml cup, that comes to roughly 30 mg. Not zero. Not especially high either. If you are comparing it with coffee, the difference is easy to feel.
Coffee is often listed around 60 mg per 100 ml, so a small cup of Hojicha lands much lower. That is part of why it feels easier to fit into the later hours of the day. You still get aroma and structure in the cup, but the stimulant load is lighter.
The public reference values are based on defined brewing conditions, not on every personal teapot. The MHLW Q&A, for example, lists Hojicha prepared with 15 g of leaf, 650 ml of water at 90 C, and a 30-second infusion. Few people at home brew in exactly that way. Some make it stronger, some lighter, and some refill the pot several times. That is another reason not to treat a single published number as the amount in your own cup.
Caffeine extraction shifts with leaf quantity, water temperature, and steeping time. Use more tea, pour hotter water, let it sit longer, and you will pull out more. Brew it lightly, and the cup becomes softer. The same tea can move in both directions.
This matters because people often talk about Hojicha as if every cup contains the same amount of caffeine. It does not. A quick home infusion and a strong cafe-style brew are not the same drink. The broad takeaway holds, though: Hojicha is not caffeine-free, but the standard brewed cup is modest enough that many people find it manageable.
Explore our Hojicha and Japanese tea collection
How Hojicha compares
At about 20 mg per 100 ml, Hojicha sits in the lower range — roughly one-third of coffee and far below Gyokuro. The contrast becomes clearer when you line Hojicha up against other teas. Gyokuro sits at the far end, about 160 mg per 100 ml, deeply concentrated and unmistakably high in caffeine. Black tea is often listed around 30 mg per 100 ml. Coffee, as mentioned, is around 60 mg per 100 ml. Genmaicha comes in lower, about 10 mg per 100 ml, helped by the presence of roasted rice in the blend.
Matcha belongs in its own lane because you drink the leaf itself. A standard serving made with about 2 g of powder contains roughly 64 mg of caffeine. That does not make it stronger than every coffee by default, but it is enough to place Matcha well above the average cup of Hojicha.
Serving size changes the real-world effect too. You may sip Matcha from a small bowl, black tea from a mug, and Hojicha from several modest cups over the course of an evening. Concentration per 100 ml matters, but so does how much you actually drink. That is one reason caffeine conversations can feel confusing until you separate the number on paper from the way tea enters daily life.
Then comes the part that makes people stop. Sencha and Hojicha are both listed at about 20 mg per 100 ml. The standard composition tables put them side by side. So why does Hojicha keep getting introduced as the low-caffeine option while Sencha usually does not?
The answer is not that the numbers are wrong. It is that category names hide a lot. "Hojicha" can mean a later-harvest tea, a stem-heavy tea, or a roasted tea made from leaf material that already started with less caffeine. When people call Hojicha low in caffeine, they are often describing the common style they encounter in real life, not every roasted tea in every form. If you want a broader look at how caffeine behaves across tea types, our piece on tea ingredients and caffeine adds more context.
Why Hojicha gets the low-caffeine label
The label is not pure myth. It just gets simplified too much. Three things shape Hojicha's reputation: what roasting does, what leaves are chosen, and whether stems are part of the blend. Put together, they explain why the phrase "low caffeine" is half-true rather than universally true.
Roasting does reduce some caffeine
Hojicha is roasted at high heat, often above 200 C. At that temperature, some caffeine can sublimate and leave the leaf. That sounds dramatic, and many product descriptions lean on it hard. The reality is quieter. Roasting can reduce caffeine, but usually not to the extent people imagine.
The best reminder is still the official brewed comparison: Sencha at 20 mg per 100 ml, Hojicha at 20 mg per 100 ml. If roasting alone cut caffeine in a major way, those numbers would separate much more clearly. They do not. Roasting changes aroma decisively. It can trim caffeine to some degree. But it is not the whole explanation.
Older leaves often start lower
Hojicha is frequently made from more mature leaves, often from second or third harvest material rather than the youngest spring buds. Younger tea leaves tend to carry more caffeine. They are the tender part of the plant, more chemically active, more protected. Larger, later leaves usually hold less.
That raw-material choice matters as much as, and sometimes more than, the roast itself. A Hojicha made from mature leaves can feel milder because the leaf already started out lower in caffeine. This is one reason the tea earned its evening reputation in the first place. The common image of Hojicha is not a delicate first-flush leaf taken late into a roaster. It is a practical, everyday tea built from material that already leans softer.
That is also why it helps to understand the range within the category. A darker roast does not automatically mean lower caffeine. A later harvest often tells you more. Our article on different styles of Hojicha shows how much variation sits behind the single name.
Stem-based Hojicha is lighter still
Some of the gentlest Hojicha cups come from Kukicha, or stem tea. When stems make up more of the material, caffeine tends to drop further than in a leaf-heavy tea. You will often see these styles sold as kuki-Hojicha or karigane. They can taste sweet, airy, and especially easy to drink at night.
This is where the reputation for low caffeine becomes most deserved. A stem-based Hojicha is not just roasted. It is made from parts of the tea plant that generally extract less caffeine in the first place. If you have tried one Hojicha that felt very light and another that felt more substantial, the leaf-to-stem balance may be part of the reason.
So yes, Hojicha is often a lower-caffeine tea. But the statement only becomes accurate when you include the rest of the sentence: depending on the material. That missing half matters. It is the difference between a helpful rule of thumb and a misleading promise.
If caffeine is a concern
If you are choosing Hojicha because you want a calmer cup, a few practical habits help more than chasing perfect certainty. Numbers are useful. So are small brewing decisions. And if you are also interested in what Hojicha offers beyond stimulant levels, our guide to the health benefits of Hojicha looks at the broader picture.
- Cold brew when possible. Lower temperatures extract caffeine more slowly, so an overnight infusion is often gentler than a hot brew made from the same leaves. If you want to try it, our guide on how to make cold brew tea walks through the method.
- Choose stem-based Hojicha. Look for kuki-Hojicha, karigane, or other descriptions that signal a higher stem content. Those teas are often the easiest evening options.
- Give yourself a little time before bed. Even with a lower-caffeine tea, drinking it right before sleep is not ideal if you are sensitive. Leaving a gap of two to three hours is a sensible habit.
- Think in totals, not in single cups. During pregnancy, most public health guidelines recommend no more than 200 mg of caffeine per day from all sources combined — EFSA, NHS, and Health Canada all use this figure. WHO and some other guidelines allow up to 300 mg. Hojicha can fit inside either range for many people, but coffee, black tea, chocolate, and energy drinks all count too. When in doubt, follow your clinician's advice.
Sensitivity still varies from person to person. One cup after dinner may feel fine for you and too stimulating for someone else. The safest approach is not to treat Hojicha as magically exempt from caffeine, but to treat it as a tea that often gives you more room to choose.
A slower cup, with the numbers in view
At FETC, we do not think the value of Hojicha starts and ends with its caffeine level. The low-caffeine reputation matters because it creates room for tea to feel companionable — a cup after dinner, aroma without intensity, presence without demand.
Still, we prefer to keep the picture grounded. Hojicha is not a caffeine-free drink. Standard brewed Hojicha sits around 20 mg per 100 ml, or about 30 mg in a 150 ml cup, and the exact amount moves with leaf choice and brewing. What makes it feel easier in the evening is not one single trick of roasting, but the combination of roast, mature leaves, and sometimes stems. For the full picture of what roasting does to the chemistry, see our guide to Hojicha ingredients.
That is why we keep coming back to it. You do not have to give up flavor to step back from stimulation. You just have to choose the tea with a little more care. In that sense, Hojicha earns its place at the quieter end of the day.
Common questions about Hojicha and caffeine
How much caffeine is in a cup of Hojicha compared to coffee?
Brewed Hojicha contains about 20 mg of caffeine per 100 ml, compared to roughly 60 mg per 100 ml for coffee. In practical cup terms, a 150 ml serving of Hojicha delivers around 30 mg, while a standard 150 ml coffee delivers around 90 mg. That puts Hojicha at approximately one-third of coffee. The difference is consistent enough that people who normally feel the effects of coffee often find Hojicha much easier to manage, especially in the evening.
Can I drink Hojicha before bed?
For most people, yes. The standard brewed cup at around 30 mg is modest enough that it does not interfere with sleep the way coffee or strong black tea might. A gap of two to three hours before bed is a sensible habit, especially if you know you are sensitive to caffeine. If you want to be extra careful, cold brew Hojicha extracts caffeine more slowly than hot brewing, so an overnight cold infusion is often gentler still. Individual sensitivity varies, so what works without issue for one person may feel stimulating for another.
Is there caffeine-free Hojicha?
Standard Hojicha always contains some caffeine, even after roasting. The roast reduces caffeine to a degree, but it does not eliminate it. If you want a hot roasted drink with zero caffeine, barley tea (mugicha) is the closest alternative — it is naturally caffeine-free and has a similar toasty profile. Some producers offer decaffeinated Hojicha using solvent or CO2 extraction processes, but these are less common and worth checking for availability separately. For most people asking this question in the evening context, stem-based Hojicha (kuki-Hojicha) is the practical answer: not zero, but very low.
If you enjoy Hojicha in the evening, a Hojicha latte is worth trying — the milk softens the cup further. Because the milk dilutes the tea, a latte typically delivers even less caffeine per cup than a straight brew.
References
References: Japanese Standard Tables of Food Composition (8th edition, 2020), MHLW Caffeine Q&A, Food Safety Commission Fact Sheet on Caffeine, USDA FoodData Central.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. If you have specific health concerns about caffeine, allergies, or medication interactions, please consult your doctor or healthcare provider.