Is hojicha the next matcha? The Japanese tea creeping onto menus

Drinking her hojicha, Ana says she likes the taste of matcha and drinks it twice a week, but feels that a lot of UK coffee shops have "warped" it to make it trendy with too many syrups and flavourings.

"The drinks become less about the quality and taste of the matcha" and more about highlighting unique flavour combinations, she says. "You often aren't able to actually taste the matcha."

Isabel MacNeaney, 23, a barista in a Japanese cafe in London, agrees. She says some of her customers change their mind about buying a drink when they discover the cafe doesn't serve matcha with syrups or sweeteners, or complain it tastes too bitter.

"Some people truly do like matcha," Isabel says, "but for a lot of people it's trendy and they can hide the taste with syrups so they can still have a pretty drink."

But for others - regardless of how eye-catching or how many syrups have been added, they will never enjoy the taste of matcha.

"I've tried to like it. It's gross," says Liv Dyer, 31, who'd much rather have a coffee, English breakfast tea or green tea. "It tastes like a muddy puddle."

Matcha mania may have been sweeping the world, but Nielsen IQ data shows sales of other types of tea - including green tea, kombucha and cold carbonated tea - are all rising, too.

Twinings, for example, branched out into selling sparkling fruity tea in cans in 2024, while kombucha is now available in some supermarket meal deals.

At Bird & Blend, black tea - which includes flavours like chocolate digestive and violet cream - is lined up alongside rooibos, chai, matcha and other teas. Annual sales of chai grew 38% in the year to April.

"I have been saying chai will be the next thing for a few years," says Bird & Blend's Turner, but he adds, "I don't think it will explode to the same extent that matcha has."

A sweeter, milder western version in the form of a chai latte already features on the menu of most major coffee chains, but there's growing interest in karak chai, a sweet, milky Indian tea spiced with ginger, cardamom and cinnamon, according to Chaiiwala founder Sohail Alimohamed.

Chaiiwala, which sells Indian street food and hot and iced drinks, sells around half a million cups of karak chai every month.

Its cafes are open late - some beyond midnight at the weekend - and Alimohamed says in recent months he's been contacted by universities interested in opening stores on their campuses for students who don't drink alcohol.

This is in part why friends Anjani and Abeer tell me they enjoy matcha and chai cafes so much.

Neither like coffee, and both say going to cafes with a wide range of other hot - or iced - drinks offers a great alternative to socialising at the pub.

Vibrantly-coloured drinks made with ube, or purple yam, have also been added to Costa Coffee and Starbucks menus this summer, with marketing materials heavily promoting ube's lilac hues.

But on a sunny Spring day when I ask people in a London park what tea trends they've got their eyes on, it's not ube that keeps coming up - it's mate.

A bitter, caffeinated tea from South America, it's traditionally served hot with a straw, but is also available chilled.

"I think mate is gonna be the next thing," says Adam Leahy, 23, highlighting its taste and high caffeine content.

Despite Adam's prediction, there's no knowing for sure what the next big trend will be, and cafe owners and businesses I spoke to certainly don't seem to be anticipating that hojicha - or any other teas - will explode in quite the same way matcha did.

But more fun new flavours are coming on to the market, and the rise of the sober-curious movement and interest in drinks with functional benefits are helping shape trends.

As Bird & Blend's Turner says: "It's an exciting time for tea."