Types of Japanese Green Tea: Sencha, Gyokuro, Hojicha and More Compared

Japanese green tea comes in more types than most tea shops abroad show, and Hana’s first tip is that the names describe how the leaf was grown and finished, not different plants. This guide puts sencha, gyokuro, kabusecha, hojicha, genmaicha, bancha and kukicha side by side: taste, caffeine (from Japan’s official food composition tables), water temperature and price at one Kyoto tea maker. At the end you will find how to buy it in the US now that small parcels from Japan are no longer duty-free. Checked 16 October 2026.

The short answer: which tea for which drinker?

Type	How it is made	Taste in a word	Caffeine per 100 g of brewed tea*	Water
Sencha	sun-grown, steamed, rolled, dried	fresh, slightly bitter	20 mg	70–90 °C
Gyokuro	shaded about 20 days before harvest, then made like sencha	sweet, savoury (umami), thick	160 mg (brewed strong)	50–60 °C
Kabusecha	shaded about 7 days	between sencha and gyokuro	not listed	not in the guide
Hojicha	green tea roasted brown	toasty, low bitterness	20 mg	boiling, ~30 s
Genmaicha	green tea mixed with roasted rice	nutty, light	10 mg	boiling, ~30 s
Bancha	later, larger leaves	plain, everyday	10 mg	boiling, ~30 s
Kukicha	the stems separated during sorting	light	not listed	not in the guide
Matcha	shaded tencha leaf ground into powder	rich, you drink the leaf	3.2 g per 100 g of powder	whisked, ~80 °C

*From Japan’s Standard Tables of Food Composition (MEXT, 8th edition, 2023 supplement). The figures depend on how the tea was brewed for the test: gyokuro 10 g of leaf in 60 mL at 60 °C for 2.5 minutes; sencha 10 g in 430 mL at 90 °C for 1 minute; hojicha, bancha and genmaicha 15 g in 650 mL at 90 °C for 30 seconds. Your own cup will differ. Water temperatures are from Shizuoka Prefecture’s brewing guide; matcha from our matcha guide.

Shade is what makes the expensive teas different

The most surprising thing for many visitors is that gyokuro, kabusecha and matcha start from the same tea bushes as everyday sencha. What changes is light. According to Japan’s farm ministry (MAFF):

• Gyokuro is covered with straw or shade cloth for about 20 days before harvest, then steamed, rolled and dried like sencha. Main areas: Mie, Kyoto and Fukuoka.
• Kabusecha (“covered tea”) is shaded for about 7 days. Main areas: Mie, Nara, Shizuoka and Fukuoka.
• Tencha, the leaf ground into matcha, is shaded for about 2–3 weeks under a frame and dried flat without rolling.

Japanese growers group these three as ōi-cha, shaded tea. They are a small part of the harvest. In MAFF’s figures for the 2025 crop, sencha made up 48.1% of crude tea production, tencha 8.6%, kabusecha 2.0% and gyokuro just 1.0%. The farm-gate price of crude gyokuro was ¥3,699 per kg, about twice that of sencha (¥1,746).

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Which region does Japanese tea come from?

Most people abroad think of Shizuoka, around Mount Fuji. That changed recently: MAFF reports that Kagoshima, in the far south of Kyushu, produced the most crude tea in Japan in both 2024 and 2025, the first time since records began. In 2025 Kagoshima made 30,000 tonnes and Shizuoka 24,100 tonnes, out of about 75,100 tonnes nationally. Shizuoka still has the larger tea-growing area (11,600 ha against 8,040 ha). Uji (Kyoto) is famous for gyokuro and matcha, though Kyoto’s total output is much smaller, at 2,280 tonnes.

A region name on the pack is a hint about style, not a grade. MAFF lists Kagoshima as Japan’s largest producer of tencha, the leaf ground into matcha, with a wide mix of tea cultivars, and Shizuoka as producing mainly sencha, especially fukamushi (deep-steamed) sencha, which Shizuoka’s guide steeps for only about 30 seconds.

Hojicha and genmaicha: the “everyday” teas

Hojicha is green tea roasted until brown. A common belief abroad is that it is caffeine-free. It is not: Japan’s official tables list 20 mg per 100 g of brewed hojicha, the same as sencha brewed the official way. If you want the lowest caffeine of the leaf teas in the table, bancha and genmaicha are listed at 10 mg.

Genmaicha mixes green tea, often bancha, with roasted rice. Bancha is made from later-season, larger leaves and is the plain tea of Japanese homes. Kukicha is made from stems separated when tea is sorted; Ippodo sells both sencha stems and gyokuro stems.

Shizuoka Prefecture’s guide brews all three roasted or everyday teas the same way: 15 g of leaf for five people, boiling water, about 30 seconds.

How to brew each type

Shizuoka Prefecture’s guide gives these starting points. The rule of thumb: the more shade the leaf had, the cooler the water and the smaller the cup.

Tea	Leaf	Water	Time
Gyokuro, high grade	10 g for 3 people	50 °C	2 min 30 s
Gyokuro, standard	10 g for 3 people	60 °C	2 min
Sencha, high grade	6 g for 3 people	70 °C	2 min
Sencha, standard	10 g for 5 people	90 °C	1 min
Deep-steamed sencha	as above	as above	about 30 s
Hojicha, bancha, genmaicha	15 g for 5 people	boiling	about 30 s

A kettle with temperature settings makes this easy.

What it costs: a price ladder from one Kyoto tea maker

To show how wide the range is, here are the list prices at Ippodo’s global online shop on 16 October 2026, in yen before shipping:

Type	Pack	Price range
Sencha	80 g bag	¥1,000 – ¥3,500
Gyokuro	50 g bag	¥1,400 – ¥10,000
Hojicha, genmaicha	100 g bag	¥600 – ¥700 (several sold out that day)
Hojicha, genmaicha tea bags	8–9 bags	¥1,100 – ¥1,300

Gyokuro costs more per gram at every level, and you use more leaf per cup. A mid-priced sencha is a practical first step if you want to compare teas. Loose hojicha and genmaicha were sold out on several lines that day, so check stock before planning an order around them.

When to skip a type

• Skip gyokuro if you drink tea in big mugs or with milk; its strength comes in small, slow cups and its caffeine is high when brewed the traditional way.
• Skip expensive sencha if you brew with boiling water; Shizuoka’s guide uses 70 °C for higher grades, and boiling water brings out bitterness.
• Skip all of them if you need to avoid caffeine entirely. Even the lowest-caffeine teas in the official table are not zero. Barley tea (mugicha), sold in Japan alongside green tea, is a grain drink, not tea.

Buying Japanese green tea in the US

The routes are the same as for matcha, which we cover in detail in our matcha guide (rules checked 12 October 2026):

1. A Japanese maker’s US site. Ippodo says its USA & Canada shop ships from inside the US, so there is no customs step.
2. A maker’s global shop in Japan. You pay international shipping, and duties and carrier fees may follow, because U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the $800 duty-free de minimis treatment is suspended for all countries, including for mail.
3. Food parcels need FDA Prior Notice. The FDA’s guidance says the personal-use exemption covers food you carry in your luggage, not food mailed to you. Ask the shop whether it files Prior Notice before ordering.

If you are visiting Japan, the easiest way to try several types is to buy small bags in Japan and carry them home for your own use. Tea goes well with Japanese meals; see how to eat sushi in Japan, and if you are curious about sweets to drink it with, our weird Japanese snacks list has a few.

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