Houjicha Syrup

I’ve made matcha syrup before, but I had never seen a houjicha syrup until recently.

I stumbled upon a Japanese video about it and decided to try it myself.

Here’s the recipe:

I decided to make half of that amount to begin with.

First, mix the water and the sugar in a pan.

Then set the flame to high heat and mix so that the sugar dissolves.

Once the liquid is boiling vigorously, change to medium heat and add the houjicha.

Also mix a bit because the houjicha tends to float.

After one minute, turn off the stove and just let rest for 3 minutes.

Finally, use a strainer to separate the tea leaves from the houjicha syrup.

You can press the leaves to get more of the liquid, but don’t do it too hard.

The syrup has a pleasant aroma of roasted green tea.

As a bonus, the video shows the recipe for an iced houjicha latte.

It’s just ice, 30 gr of houjicha syrup, and 100 ml of milk.

I prepared that, and felt that it’s a bit more sweet than I would have liked.

The color is too light, but if I add more houjicha syrup it would be even sweeter.

I saved the syrup on my refrigerator, and enjoyed it the next day.

Before I forget, here’s the video that I saw: