Akira Hojo | Founder and CEO of HOJO
Founder and CEO, HOJO CO., LTD.
I decide how our teas are made, at the gardens and the factories in China, Taiwan and Japan. Unless an article says otherwise, what you read on this site comes from what I have seen at origin and from my own work.
Background
Born in Nagano, Japan, in 1971. I studied agricultural chemistry as an undergraduate, then took a master’s degree in food science and nutrition at the University of Shizuoka.
I spent the next ten years at a listed Japanese food manufacturer, in R&D, quality control and quality assurance. I developed and designed production equipment, and I ran it. As QMR for the ISO 9000 series, I built the company’s quality assurance system. My last post was factory manager in Malaysia, in charge of the whole production floor.
After about eight years posted in South East Asia, I founded HOJO in 2006. I use the same methods I learned in food manufacturing: evaluating the raw material, designing the process, controlling quality. I spend two to three months a year in China and Taiwan. I buy from primary producers with no wholesaler in between, and I stay with the tea from the choice of leaf through processing, packing and logistics.
Three things decide the quality of a tea: the raw material, the processing, and managing its freshness. The raw material alone varies with the cultivar, the altitude, whether the garden is fertilised and when the leaf is plucked. Two teas from the same place and the same grower will differ if those conditions differ. This is why I do not buy from finished samples. For more than twenty years I have gone to the gardens and the processing sheds to look for myself.
Education and expertise
Graduate School, University of Shizuoka, Japan
Faculty of Agriculture, Kindai University
Teaware: Banko, Tokoname, Sado Mumyoi and Nambu cast iron, and how the material changes the taste.
Work at HOJO
HOJO is a tea shop, founded in 2006. Akira Hojo and our technical staff go to the growing areas of China, Taiwan and Japan and buy from the producers themselves, not through trading companies or wholesalers. On site we look at the condition of that year’s garden, when the leaf is plucked and how it is processed. We then sit down with the producer, agree the method and the parameters we want, and the tea is made that way.
Together we spend two to three months a year at origin. The blog here reports what we saw there, and what we found when we brewed and tested what we had bought.
We manage HOJO Tea SDN BHD in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and run its directly operated shop at The Gardens Mall. We sell directly to customers in Japan and across Asia, the United States and Europe.
At origin
All photographs taken in Yunnan, China.
Media
Links
HOJO CO., LTD. / 2262 Yamabuki, Takamori-machi, Shimoina-gun, Nagano 399-3101, Japan / TEL +81-265-35-8384 / info@hojotea.com