Iced Black Sesame Hojicha
Iced Black Sesame Hojicha.
If you want a hojicha drink that gets photographed before it gets drunk, this is the one.
Black sesame at the base. Cold milk through the middle. A clean pour of roasted hojicha over ice on top.
Three layers. One glass. All of them doing something.
Iced Black Sesame Hojicha Recipe
Makes one drink, 350ml glass
Hojicha: 3g Jeeves & Jericho Organic Hōjicha
Water: 30ml
Ingredients
3g Jeeves & Jericho Organic Hōjicha
30ml hot water at 80C
20g black sesame paste
10g honey or maple syrup
150ml milk of choice
Plenty of ice
Make the hojicha
Add 3g of Organic Hōjicha to a bowl.
Pour over 30ml of hot water at 80C.
Whisk until completely smooth.
Just like matcha, you want the tea base made separately before you build the drink.
A bamboo whisk does the job perfectly, and it takes seconds.
Build the drink
Loosen the sesame paste with the honey and a splash of warm milk.
Spread it into the base of the glass.
Fill the glass with ice and pour in the cold milk.
Pour the hojicha slowly over the back of a spoon so it settles as a clean top layer.
Serve with a straw.
And let the guest break the layers themselves.
That is half the fun of it.
Why does hojicha work with black sesame?
Because they are cousins, flavour wise.
Hojicha brings warm, nutty, toasted notes with a caramel like depth.
Black sesame brings exactly the same family of flavours, just darker and richer.
Neither one disappears behind the other.
The tea stays roasty and clean against the sesame, and the sesame makes the milk feel like pudding.
Does the layering matter?
For the flavour, not really.
For the customer taking a photo, absolutely.
Pour the hojicha over the back of a spoon and it sits on top of the milk instead of mixing straight in.
Warm the sesame paste first, by the way.
Cold paste grips the glass and refuses to drizzle.
Warm paste ribbons down and streaks beautifully.
Make it café ready
The sesame base can be made ahead and kept chilled.
The milk goes in from the fridge.
The hojicha base whisks to order in about fifteen seconds.
So the whole drink comes together faster than a flat white.
And unlike most signature iced drinks, there is no syrup station and no blender involved.
It is a proper menu head turner with almost no prep.
Make it your own
Use oat milk for a naturally sweeter, rounder drink.
Swap the honey for maple if you want a slightly lighter sweetness.
Add a tiny pinch of sea salt to the sesame paste to push the flavour further.
Or dust the top with a little extra hojicha so the layers show through the lid of a takeaway cup too.
Black sesame and roasted tea.
It sounds niche.
Then someone orders it and it never leaves the specials board.
Want it on your menu?
Open a trade account and we will send you the hōjicha to try it with.