Japanese tea at home is much simpler than it looks. You don't need a ceremony, you don't need a shelf of equipment, and you don't need to learn a new vocabulary before your first cup. Most of what's worth knowing fits into one short article — which is what this one is.
This guide covers the three loose-leaf Japanese teas most worth keeping at home, the small handful of brewing decisions that genuinely affect what's in your cup, and the teaware we carry to make it all easier. If you also drink black tea like English breakfast, Chinese tea like oolong, or herbal tea — most loose-leaf drinkers do — the same teaware folds straight into your routine.
The teapot does most of the work
If you're buying one piece of Japanese teaware first, make it a teapot.
The first detail to check is the strainer. Japanese teapots use one of two approaches — small holes pressed into the spout side of the body, or a removable metal basket that lifts out for cleaning. Both work well. The basket has the practical advantage of rinsing easily between teas, which matters if you switch around; the integrated style gives leaves a little more room to spread inside the pot. What matters either way is that the openings are fine enough to hold loose-leaf tea — including small-leaved sencha — and that the strainer sits snugly so the pour stays clean.
The second is capacity. Most home brewing fits comfortably in a 350–500 ml pot — two cups for one person, or a smaller pot to share. We carry pots from around 400 ml up to a larger Banko ware teapot for when you're brewing for the table.
The third is the body material. Porcelain (hard, white-bodied, fully glazed) is the easier first choice: neutral in flavour, easy to clean, and forgiving of the wider range of teas a household tends to brew. Stoneware (Banko, in our range) is wonderful too, but it carries a fainter memory of what you brew in it — fine if you mostly drink one kind of tea, less so if you switch around.
And the fourth is the handle. Top-handled pots pour larger volumes easily; side-handled pots — the traditional Japanese kyusu (急須) — give you fine control over single-cup brews. Some pots use a separate metal handle to bridge the body, which keeps the grip cool to the touch.
A note on water and temperature
If you change one thing about how you brew tea, change the water temperature. It's the variable that does the most work.
A rough rule of thumb: the more delicate the leaf, the cooler the water. Sencha likes water around 70–80°C. Hōjicha is fine near 95°C. Genmaicha sits comfortably around 90°C. Most boil-fresh kettles deliver close to 100°C — too hot for sencha, which goes bitter and grassy at full boil.
If your kettle boils to a single temperature, the older method works just as well: pour the boiling water into a cooled cup first, wait a moment, then pour it into the teapot. Each transfer drops the water by about 5–10°C. Two transfers brings boiling water down to roughly 80°C.
A second small thing: don't pour boiling water directly onto a cold porcelain teapot. A brief warm-rinse (pour a little hot water in, swirl, pour it out) reduces thermal shock and helps the brew stay hot for longer.
The three teas worth keeping at home
If you're starting a small Japanese tea shelf, three teas will cover almost every mood and time of day.
Sencha (煎茶) is the everyday Japanese green — fresh, slightly grassy, faintly sweet, with a clean finish. It rewards a short steep at a cooler temperature: about 70–80°C for 60 seconds for the first infusion, then a shorter, slightly hotter steep for the second. Most Japanese loose-leaf gives you two or three infusions per scoop; the second is often the most balanced.
Hōjicha (ほうじ茶) is sencha that has been roasted, turning the leaves a deep amber-brown and the flavour into something gentle and warm — closer to roasted barley than green tea. It's low in caffeine, easy on the stomach, and excellent in the evening or after a heavy meal. Brew at near-boiling for 30 seconds.
Genmaicha (玄米茶) is sencha blended with roasted brown rice — savoury, toasty, comforting, and a good gateway tea for anyone who finds straight sencha too grassy. Around 90°C for 30–60 seconds. There are also some with matcha powder blended in, for those who want an extra kick of green tea flavour.
A Japanese teapot brews all three happily. It also brews anything else you keep loose-leaf — black tea, Chinese tea, herbal blends — without complaint.
A note on cups
Cups matter less than the teapot, but they do matter a little. The right cup for Japanese tea is small — around 100–150 ml — and unhandled, which lets you hold it cradled in both hands. Yunomi (湯呑) are the everyday tall cups; senchawan (煎茶碗) are the lower, wider cups designed for sencha specifically. Porcelain cups suit lighter teas; stoneware cups suit fuller-flavoured brews. Thin walls let you feel the temperature of the tea in your hands, which is part of the experience.
The teaware we carry
Our teaware shelf is built around a few makers across several Japanese regions. Each one approaches the same craft slightly differently.
Hasami ware (Nagasaki). The Barbar IROHA Hand-Painted Hasami Porcelain Teapot — light, neutral in flavour, and a good first teapot. (For more on the region, our guide to Hasami ware goes into the history.)
Mino ware (Gifu). The Mino Ware Teapot, Frustum Series and the matching Frustum-series cup, by Shinzan-gama Yamatsu, a kiln in Toki City making ceramics since 1868. The 470 ml body comes from Mino; the metal handle is made in Tsubame, Niigata. Alongside it, a smaller Konare Mino Ware Teapot, and the Konare mug also by Yamatsu for a more casual feel all rounder. The Mino Ware Tea Cups are an excellent everyday choice, with a warm, hand-crafted feel.
Nabeshima Kosen Kiln (Saga). Celadon porcelain from one of the few remaining kilns in Ōkawachi-yama still specialising in the technique. We carry their side-handle and top-handle teapots in jade glaze, and matching cups in both jade and crackle-glaze finishes, with saucers available. We'll be writing more about this maker in our next article.
Banko ware (Mie). A large rattan-handle teapot for serving a table — the stoneware body holds heat well.
Nambu cast iron (Iwate). The Nambu Cast Iron Tea Warmer — not a kettle for boiling water, but a small stand that keeps your brewed pot warm over a tea-light.
Echizen lacquerware (Fukui). The Echizen Hard Lacquer Vessel, made using a contemporary hard-lacquer technique developed locally — a covered vessel that holds warmth without conducting it to your hand. Beautiful cup for coffee too.
Cups from across Japan. Alongside the Mino and Nabeshima pieces above, we carry tea cups from Shigaraki, Arita, and Mashiko — three more regions, three more characters.
