The Gyokuro Hojicha KAHO

A roasted gyokuro from stems alone. The Gyokuro Hojicha KAHO (玉露焙じ茶 KAHO香焙) is a roasted gyokuro-based green tea built not from bancha, the common base for hojicha, but exclusively from the stem, or karigane, portions carefully selected from first-flush gyokuro leaves. Those stems are then roasted, making it a gyokuro hojicha (玉露ほうじ茶) rather than a leaf hojicha. The defining production gesture is a long-duration, light-roast (浅炒り焙煎) technique, a shallow roast that Royal Blue Tea describes as demanding subtle adjustment and intuition and as having been praised by chefs in the culinary world.^{[1],[2],[3],[4]}

Palate. Royal Blue Tea describes the Gyokuro Hojicha KAHO as having a light, gentle, smooth mouthfeel with almost no bitterness or astringency. Its light roast is credited with producing a distinctively sweet, mellow aroma, an effect the producer attributes to the shallow degree of roasting.^{[1],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7]}

Structure. On the points the claims support:^[6]

• Astringency: almost none
• Bitterness: almost none
• Body: light, gentle, smooth mouthfeel

Brewing (loose-leaf). The loose-leaf Gyokuro Hojicha KAHO can be prepared in three styles. The Strong brew (芳醇濃厚) uses 6 g of tea leaves, water at 80°C, 220 cc of water, and a 40-second steep. The Medium brew (スタンダード) uses 5 g of leaves, water at 80–90°C and 220 cc across two infusions, steeping 2 minutes for the first and 3 minutes for the second. The Light brew (あっさり) uses 3 g of leaves, boiling water at 100°C and 220 cc across four infusions, with steeping times of 30 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds and 1 minute respectively.^[8]

Production. The tea is produced by Shinya Yamaguchi, a tenth-dan (茶師十段) tea master born and raised in Hoshino Village, Yame City, Fukuoka. Royal Blue Tea states that Yamaguchi won the individual championship at the 57th and 58th National Tea Evaluation Technical Competition in consecutive years, describing this as the first time in history a person won three times, and that he became the youngest person ever to reach the highest rank of tenth-dan, at age 32. The bottled Gyokuro Hojicha KAHO is extracted by a non-heated cold process lasting three days, and finished through the long-duration, light-roast (浅炒り焙煎) roasting.^[1]