Look out for the new stylish label

Namacha Hojisencha

Brand: Kirin

Price: 135 yen

Place of purchase: Matsumoto Kiyoshi drugstore

Rating:

Kirin's Namacha Hoji sencha is a lovely and simple roasted tea in a plastic PET bottle. It's convenient if you're parched and has a lovely roasted aroma and a good balance of nutty sweetness and low astringency. The current plastic PET bottle design for Kirin's Namacha Hoji Sencha is simple and shows off the golden color of the tea. But if you just glanced at it without your specs on, you might mistake the square shoulder and golden color for whiskey! I sure did when I was rubbing my eyes. I got mine at a convenience store.

This is lovely tea if you're after a flat drink with good flavor, no sugar and low in caffeine. I sometimes drink this kind of tea in the evening and it doesn't seem to make me more wakeful than normal. Because hojicha is roasted, it has less of a grassy flavor and lower bitterness. However, if you're seeking catechins, go for the green variety of tea as the roasting process reduces that chemical compound said to have positive effects on heart health. But that bottle design...A Kirin press release says that the new bottle design will have a stylized drop motif from April 2024.