• Home
  • Saicho Hojicha
  • A bottle of Saicho Japanese Hojicha Sparkling Tea with a light green label and a decorative cap, filled with amber-colored tea, on a solid white background.
  • Bottle of Hojicha Tea Saicho on a white background
  • Saicho Hojicha Sparkling Tea served with a food pairing
Saicho

Saicho Hojicha

$20
$20
Sale Sold out
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Size: 200 mL

Shizuoka, at any season.

Saicho holds tea to the standard of wine. Founded by Natalie Chiu and Charlie Winkworth-Smith — food scientists, husband and wife — and named for the monk who first carried tea from China to Japan, it exists to give tea its rightful place at the table: the same glass, the same considered hand. That conviction is why they entered the house.

Hojicha is the roast of the wall. Second-flush Sencha from Shizuoka, Japan's historic tea heartland, slow-roasted until the leaf deepens into amber — then cold-brewed a full day and finished with a fine carbonation. Toasted grain, the warmth of caramel, a nuance of roasted nuts, held up by a soft, persistent bead. Smoke without bitterness; quiet, deep, unmistakably Japanese in its restraint.

The most contemplative of the four — autumnal at any season. The pour that converts the whiskey drinker.

We do not score. We read. The Reading is how the house locates this bottle — four axes, written on the four petals of the mark.

The Reading™

NOSE    warm

ARC    deepening

WEIGHT    rounded

STAY    calm, long

One to four petals, quiet to pronounced. A Reading is a location, not a grade.

Read in — the handblown Stem Zero Masterglass. The bowl gathers the aroma and lifts it to the nose before the first sip.

Serve — well chilled. 

Nose — Warm. Toasted grain and caramel rise first, a nuance of roasted nuts beneath.

Arc — Deepening. It settles as it travels — the roast unfolding rather than announcing itself.

Weight — Rounded. Amber-deep and smooth, carried on a soft, persistent bead.

Stay — Calm, long. Smoke without bitterness, resting quietly — the finish of a tea at ease with itself.

The Table — Duck. Mushroom. Aged cheese, roasted roots, anything caramelized. Or poured alone after dinner — the rare bottle that holds the room by itself.
A bottle of Saicho Japanese Hojicha Sparkling Tea with a light green label and a decorative cap, filled with amber-colored tea, on a solid white background.
Saicho Hojicha
$20
$20