Hojicha Reserve Switch Review

As those of you reading this review freshly off of the presses may have noticed, I posted this one a bit earlier in the day than when I normally do on review Sundays. And since I’m sure at least a fraction of that fraction of readers is now asking the screen why it is I’m pointing this out, it’s because I’m too excited about a double header of movies that I’m going to see right this second to not share it. Going back to the arthouse movie theater that I had mentioned a couple of reviews ago, today will be the last day that they are doing a back to back showing of ‘Fantastic Planet’ and ‘The Time Masters’ – two animated sci-fi movies from the 1970’s and 1980’s, respectively. While I’ve never seen either of these movies from the famous French animator René Laloux before, the animation jumped out of the screen at me when I first saw the trailers and they so thoroughly itched a certain part of my movie going brain that simply doesn’t get love all that much anymore. Minus the fact that these seem like pretty deep movies with complex, borderline existential personal themes in them, they almost remind me of early Saturday morning cartoons with the theme set in a futuristic space setting. Given that the last time I was this excited about a movie playing at this theater it ended up being one of the more profound and deeply striking films I’d have ever seen (A24’s ‘I Saw The TV Glow’), I have a pretty good feeling about these movies as well. So while I do absolutely encourage you to join me in getting some popcorn ready before continuing, you’ll have to do so for the rest of this switch review until you get a chance to find these movies for yourself! Don’t worry, though, the background section of this one has a lot of neat details that will make it well worth the effort of tossing a bag of popcorn into the microwave.

Figure 1: I'm not even sure where you'd find something like this online. The Criterion Collection maybe?

Switch Background

I’m sure that at least a few of you scrolled through this article briefly before returning back to the start just to get a sense of why I suggested gathering some snacks before getting into it all. To those of you that did yo-yo back up to this point here, no you’re not crazy – this is a pretty long background section for a switch that was only first announced by Invokeys a month ago and only freshly put on sale about two weeks ago. (It’s not because of the long sentences filled with fourth-wall breaks, either.) While the reviews that sit at the intersection of ‘switches that are brand new’ and ‘longer than all hell background section’ are usually padded out with community-wide context surrounding the switches or tangentially pointing to some historical thread that I’m trying to get down onto paper, this is a rare one that escapes those categorizations. Instead, I’ll be going through all the history that existed of these switches, and all of the other switches in Invokeys’ new ‘Reserve’ switch family, before they even had a chance to be purchased. Much like with my Invokeys Blueberry Chiffon Switch Review from some time ago, Invokeys has yet again hooked me up with a large number of samples, prototypes, and background information about the development of these switches and has given me free reign to discuss whatever I want to when it came to their development. So rather than sharing the story of these switches as they’ve unfolded over the past 15-30 days, let’s take a step back many, many months to see how a switch like the Hojicha Reserve switches even makes their way to where they are today.

All the way back in June of 2023, James and the team at Invokeys began the process of sitting down to have more formalized discussions about the development of a new switch for Invokeys. While the Invokeys Matcha Latte, Blueberry Chiffon, and Black Sesame switches that they had had in stock for some time prior to this had been met with community-wide acclaim, the team had specifically felt they were lacking a switch that would cater to customers seeking more RGB-compatible switch options. Wanting to develop a switch that would absolutely maximize the the amount of possible RGB LED shine through when in a compatible build, Invokeys started a project that they dubbed ‘Clarity’ with the goal of developing a fully transparent switch. Not wanting to just settle for reproducing a switch design which had been done almost a dozen times over by this point in time, they chose to also add one twist to the design of these clear switches in the form of embedded “flash powder” or some light interactive material in the housings of the switches that would drive home their purpose as being RGB-compatible switch options. Reaching out to their then main manufacturing partner in Aflion in August of 2023, Invokeys had asked if Aflion had the capabilities of producing switches with such aesthetic goals. After several weeks of deliberation and internal testing, though, Aflion returned to them with a belief that they wouldn’t be able to achieve such a design. At the same point in time which Invokeys received this disappointing news from Aflion, several other Invokeys switch projects with Aflion, BSUN, and LICHICX had all begun picking up traction and ultimately stole away a lot of the free time that they had had to work on the ‘Clarity’ switches. Choosing instead to focus on these projects which ultimately resulted in the Red Bean, Purple Rice, and Invokeys x Alas Daydreamer/Nightshade switches, the goal of a super RGB friendly switch was shelved for some time. Following the release and continued success of these later Invokeys projects, they were able to return back to the drawing board in the closing months of 2023 to give another attempt at the designs and ideas that they had previously had for the ‘Clarity’ switches. Less intrigued now by the prospect of a transparent switch, Invokeys chose to lean into their other asesthetic idea of pieces of light-interactive materials being included in the housings of switches. Rather than starting with the “flash powder” that had first came to their minds several months before, though, they struck out on this renewed exploration for a switch by looking into metallic flakes.

Invokeys’ hunt for metallic effect flakes which could be included in a switch housing ultimately brought them into face to face meetings with BSUN in January of 2024. Meeting at CES Las Vegas and formally putting faces to names that they had previously collaborated with on the Purple Rice switches, Invokeys had mentioned the ideas they had generated for the former ‘Clarity’ project to the designers at the booth and they seemed at least intrigued by the thought of them. While no formal discussions were had about the feasibility of making such switches, the positive response by BSUN regarding their willingness to try these things at some point in time was enough to spur on Invokeys to return to the drawing board and narrow down on the part renders, specifications, and details that would be needed of BSUN in order to actually attempt to make switches with included metallic flakes. Over the course of the next handful of weeks, Invokeys tested all available material samples from BSUN as well as their various types of linears, tactiles, and clickies, and ultimately created a mockup rendering of the first ‘Reserve’ switch, the Matcha Reserves, on March 10th, 2024. Only a bit more than one week later on March 19th, Invokeys sat down to begin formal discussions with BSUN about attempting to make milky top housings with “gold specks” of material in them. Having never tried this previously, the bulk of this conversation was focused specifically on “can we even do this” and the associated complexities that would be involved with making top housings with large inclusions in them. Wasting no time whatsoever, the prototypers and designers at BSUN returned to Invokeys at the very end of March and shared that they did believe they could make a switch like Invokeys was looking for. That being said, though, they had expressed some reservations (ha) about the complexity of the top housing, the types of flakes that could be included in the housings, and some yellowing of the plastic housings that had gold specks in them in their original prototyping runs. With the go ahead to move forward, only one month later on April 18th, BSUN sent back the following photograph of some prototypes they had been able to reliably create:

Figure 2: Prototype POM housings from BSUN with inclusions of gold flakes (left), black flakes (middle), and gold-painted flakes (right).

As can be seen in the photo above, BSUN’s prototyping team had been able to reliably produce three different housings – one with gold colored flakes (left), ones with black colored flakes (center), and ones with gold-painted flakes (right). Interestingly, in spite of the fact that it seems like the housing plastics used in each of these switches is different from one another, all three were made with the exact same undyed POM material. The inclusion of the gold and gold-painted flakes, for some wide potential of reasons, appeared to cause the housings to yellow ever so slightly in production. At the point in time in which BSUN had reached back out with these sample photographs, they had not been able to find a way to prevent this yellowing from occurring in those housings. With the team at Invokeys being particularly excited about the vibrancy of the gold flakes in the sample housings shown on the right, BSUN was asked to put in some more attempts to try to mitigate the yellowing issue present. While BSUN did give their best to try and reduce these issues over the next couple of weeks with several internal prototyping trials, they ultimately responded that they were only able to dial back the yellowing slightly versus what was shown in the original photos. With the allure of gold flake housings being just too hard for Invokeys to turn down in spite of this yellowing, they officially requested on April 23rd that the first batch of switch prototypes use the gold-painted flakes on, with the first full samples of the Matcha Reserve prototypes taking place on May 15th. The first prototype switches returned from this production looked a bit like this:

Figure 3: Prototype Matcha Reserve switches with gold-painted flakes and 'BSUN' nameplates (left) and finalized Matcha Reserve switches (right).

Figure 4: Prototype POM housings from BSUN with black flake inclusions.

While the team at Invokeys was undoubtedly excited by the receipt of their Reserve Matcha switches, and the fact that BSUN clearly seemed to be able to control the yellowing more than they had suggested previously, they weren’t the most thrilled with how the samples had turned out overall. In spite of performing perfectly fine as linear switches, the Matcha green coloring was a bit off from what they had initially envisioned and the gold-painted flakes just didn’t have enough shine for them to really ‘pop’ out of the top housings like they had expected. Wanting to order more color samples but knowing that production runs would become more costly if stretched out over several iterations, Invokeys then quickly rendered the colorways for the Hojicha Reserve and Pea Flower switches that they had envisioned running alongside the Matcha Reserve switches and sent back another request to BSUN on May 17th. (As a fun side note, while the Pea Flower switches ultimately ended up being clicky switches, at the time this order was placed Invokeys was still trying to decide the specific tactile strength that they wanted for their tactiles, meaning that the Pea Flower color samples would be a ‘lighter’ tactile switch and the Hojicha Reserves would be more ‘medium’ strength tactiles.) This order would include in it new Matcha Reserve housings with the gold colored specks instead of the gold-painted ones, full tactile Pea Flower switches, full Hojicha Reserve switches, and a series of differently colored green and blue stems to attempt to match the Matcha and Pea Flower final colors. With an even faster turnaround this time, BSUN produced this range of requests and returned them to Invokeys in early June, with some of the samples arriving as such:

Figure 5: Invokeys Reserve switch stem color prototypes for the Matcha Reserve and Pea Flower switches.

Figure 6: Prototype Matcha Reserve switches with gold flakes, ‘BSUN' nameplates, and cooler green tones (left) and finalized Matcha Reserve switches (right).

Figure 7: Prototype Pea Flower switches with no flake inclusions, 'BSUN' nameplates, and tactile stems and bottom housings (left) and finalized clicky Pea Flower switches (right).

Figure 8: Prototype Hojicha Reserve switches with gold and gold-painted flakes and two different bottom housing colors (left and center) and finalized Hojicha Reserve switches (right).

After months of design iteration, deliberation, sampling, and testing, Invokeys ultimately fell in love with the appearance of the gold flakes in the housings over that of their originally chosen gold-painted flakes and locked in their decision to move forward with them. Deciding on the colors for all three of the above mentioned switches following this second color sampling run, Invokeys finalized the entirety of the designs for the linear Matcha Reserve, tactile Hojicha Reserve, and clicky Pea Flower switches on June 17th, 2024. Within a week of these finalized designs, full production orders of each of these switches were placed with an estimated 1-2 months of time needed to fulfill the orders. In the meantime, Invokeys set off to do everything else required with designing and selling your own switches, including developing the marketing information, designing the packaging, and preparing any and all Invokeys content that you’ve come across thus far about these switches. Somewhere along the way I was lucky enough to have interrupted them in this process by reaching out to ask for some information, prototypes, or details that would be worth sharing in a then upcoming panel discussion with SwitchOddities at ‘That Windy City Keeb Meetup’ on July 27th of 2024. Willing to let us be the pair of people to debut these switches to the world, the team at Invokeys provided us a pair of prototyping photos from BSUN and all of this backstory which worked its way into that presentation titled ‘The Untold Tales of Unsold Switches’ which was shown off to a packed room of lucky Chicago keyboard enthusiasts. The rest of the world was soon thereafter introduced to these switches, with all three being debuted via announcements across Invokeys’ social media platforms and put up for sale over the span of a week in early August, 2024.

Figure 9: Final switch color prototyping photo used in the debut of these switches at 'That Windy City Keeb Meetup' 2024.

Specifically narrowing in on the Hojicha Reserve switches which the rest of this review will focus on, these were the first of Invokeys’ new ‘Reserve’ family of switches to be announced by them on August 9th of 2024. Marketed as being “The Everyday Tactile”, these 60 gf bottom out switches were made by BSUN and feature light factory lubing on LY stems contained inside of a POM (with gold flake) on POM housing construction. Priced at $9.00 per pack of 18 switches, or $0.50 per switch, the Hojicha Reserve switches were first put up for sale on Invokeys’ website on August 29th, 2024. While no specific authorized regional vendors have been announced for the Hojicha Reserve switches as of the time of writing this review, it’s assumed that these vendors could very likely be KeebzNCables, ktechs, SerpentKeys, Keeb Supply, and Pompokey as these have all been local keyboard vendors with whom Invokeys has worked previously. As was also stated in the announcements for the Hojicha Reserve switches, these switches are being introduced as a ‘new era’ of Invokeys switches, and thus will be replacing the Blueberry Chiffons as their in-house go to tactile offering. It’s thus almost certain that these switches will be stocked for some long length of time moving forward as a result of this decision.

Hojicha Reserve Performance

Appearance

At the highest level, the Hojicha Reserve switches come in a three part colorway inspired by the traditional Japanese roasted tea they are named after, with a dark brown stem, a tan bottom housing, and a milky white translucent top housing with embedded gold colored flakes. (Note that Hojicha, the drink, does not normally have gold flakes in it.) While there have been several switches prior to these which have embedded glitter or glitter-like specks in their housings, the Hojicha Reserves are the first to truly feature clumped flake inclusions that are irregular in size, shape, and appearance. As a result of this, it’s probably pretty damn hard to mistake these, or any of the other Invokeys Reserve family of switches, for other switches on the market currently. Beyond this incredibly obvious identifying feature, there are a few details worth noting about the Hojicha Reserve switches that occur at the sub-part level. These may be found in the paragraphs and photos below.

Figure 10: Hojicha Reserve switches and their components.

Figure 11: Hojicha Reserve switch (center) with other glitter-filled switches such as the Ajazz x Huano Kiwi and Keyfirst Bling switches.

Stopping first at the milky white, translucent POM top housings of the Hojicha Reserve switches, these are far and away the most visually stunning parts of these switches as a direct result of their scattered gold flakes. Embedded randomly both inside and outside of the top housings, the gold flakes appear consistently random across the batch of switches that I received and they definitely do glitter more than the gold-painted flakes that were seen in previous prototypes above. While some switches are noticeably more decked out in the gold flakes than others, even the ones with the least amount of gold flakes in them still clearly have them present from multiple angles. Despite not knowing this for a fact, I’m making a bold assumption by the price point that these are not in fact truly “gold” flakes, and are instead a very, very thinly gold coated aluminum foil as is common in cheaper aesthetic functions as such. Irrespective of this sad fact that you won’t be able to melt down your Hojicha Reserve top housings in order to sell off enough gold to afford a fancy new car or house, I still think the effect is absolutely visually stunning.

Figure 12: One very shitty microscope picture under very yellow lighting demonstrating just how reflective these gold flakes are.

Figure 13: Example spread of gold flake distribution on the top side of one bag of Hojicha Reserve switches.

Figure 14: Example spread of gold flake distribution on the front side of the same bag of Hojicha Reserve switches.

As for the more technical details about the Hojicha Reserve top housings, these BSUN made tops present with a fairly standard, four-legged construction on their outside. With a wide open, rectangular LED/diode slot, a centered circular indentation, and a mold marking in the form of a double digit number in that indentation, these are similar to a wide range of modern BSUN switches including that of the Invokeys Purple Rice switches. Also similar to the Purple Rice switches is that of the full width, all capital, raised letter ‘INVOKEYS’ nameplate which is likely to remain as the standard for any and all switches they make with BSUN in the future. Internally, while there’s not any features that stand out as likely to impact the push feel nor sound of the Hojicha Reserve switches, there is one that stands out as I can’t recall having ever seen it before. This feature is that of the indentation in the middle of the raised bar on the inner lip of the LED/diode slot. While this bar is present in quite a few top housings that I’ve covered here before, and is present to help lock the top housing to the bottom housing and prevent wobble, I can’t recall having ever seen this indented in this fashion before.

Figure 15: Invokeys Hojicha Reserve switch top housing exterior design showing spread of embedded gold flakes, an 'INVOKEYS' nameplate, and mold marking located in the centered LED circular indentation.

Figure 16: Invokeys Hojicha Reserve switch top housing interior design showing embedded gold flakes and a parted raised bar on the interior edge of the LED/diode slot.

Moving next to the dark brown, ‘LY’ material stems of the Hojicha Reserve switches, these have no inherent features that jump out as particularly strange or uncommon to see in modern MX-style switches. Even more meta-relevant than they appear at a distance, these stems are a touch long at 13.25 millimeters in total length, which lends to these switches having a slightly early bottoming out at 3.725 mm as opposed to the traditional 4.00 mm travel distance. The center pole on the stems is tiered, the slider rails are short and tapered, and the front plate of the stems has small mold ejection circles on them like more switches than I could even count at this point. The factory lubing that is present on the stems is light and consistently present on all four sides of the stem, with none of the switches that I opened appearing to have lube more or less evenly spread around than one another.

Figure 17: Front and back side of Hojicha Reserve switch stems showing strongly tapered slider rails, tiered center pole, and mold ejector circles located on the front plate of the stem.

Figure 18: Side profile of the Hojicha Reserve switch stems emphasizing its tactile bump profile.

Much like with the top housings described above, the tan brown, POM bottom housings of the Hojicha Reserve switches seem rather mundane and expected save for one technical detail which I can’t recall having seen before. Internally, the housings have an average sized south side spring collar, a ring around the base of their center pole hole, and mold ejector circles in the base as I’ve covered countless times over. As well, there are mold ejector circles in the corners of the lip of the bottom housing, as has been seen many times before. However, I couldn’t help but notice a pair of mold ejector circles located on the thin east and west edges of the wide-open LED hole in the bottom housing, which are closer to the internals of the housing than not. While certainly not likely to functionally improve or impede these switches in any way, perhaps this is a detail which is uniquely seen in BSUN-made bottom housings. Externally, the Hojicha Reserve bottom housings come in 5-pin/PCB mount variety only and feature a single, inverted capital letter mold marking between the metal PCB pins.

Figure 19: Hojicha Reserve bottom housing interior design showing a south side spring collar, mold ejector circles in the base of the housing, and an increased number of ejector marks around the upper rim of the housing.

Figure 20: Hojicha Reserve bottom housing exterior showing the PCB mounting pins and a small capital letter mold marking located upside down between the metal PCB pins.

Push Feel

As medium-light strength tactile switches, the Hojicha Reserves are a bit surprising to actually feel in hand as they clearly execute the common trope of a “starts at the top tactile” in a refreshingly different fashion. For one, the Hojicha Reserve switches do not have all that strong of a tactile bump. While I did start out by calling them ‘medium-light’, they are most definitely on the lighter end of that scale and only barely limp into that category on account of being stronger than their Invokeys-related predecessors in the Blueberry Chiffons. In spite of being a touch more forceful through their tactile bumps than the Blueberry Chiffons, the Hojicha Reserves still make for great spiritual successors in the lighter tactile switch category that most tactiles blow past in this day and age just to “feel” tactile. With this subtlety in the weighting of the tactile bump also comes a bump feeling that I can really only describe as ‘sub-snappy’. There’s just enough force built up in the tactile bumps of these switches to make you feel like you’re going to quickly snap past them and blow right to the bottom out, and yet you never quite reach that point of breaking. Instead, what you’re left with is a really wide, rounded feeling bump that pushes back while also still allowing you to enjoy the full length of your tactile downstroke. An additional point of uniqueness with the tactile bumps of the Hojicha Reserve switches is that they physically feel like they are starting much later in the downstroke than where they actually are. Despite what the force curve in Figure 21 below would clearly suggest, the bump both feels like it’s closer to 1.00 millimeter into the downstroke as opposed to being only a fraction of a millimeter in and feels as if it has no linear pretravel up to the bump either. It was honestly a bit strange trying to reconcile the feeling of these switches in my head with this force curve after having collected it.

Figure 21: Force curve diagram for stock Hojicha Reserve switch.

Even the other parts of the push feeling of the Hojicha Reserve switches not tied directly to their tactiles bumps have some strange behaviors associated with them. While the switches are both marketed as and visually appear to be lightly lubed from the factory, their in hand feel would lead you to believe that the were more heavily lubed as they feel a bit slippery and have absolutely no traces of characteristic scratch underneath them. If there is in fact any sub-lube character that I’m feeling in these switches, it may entirely be missed on account of it being from LY on POM contact points. To be entirely honest with you, I don’t consciously recall knowing what dry LY on POM feels like, so if you do and you know that it’s already incredibly smooth, then that would certainly explain this situation a bit better. As for the housing collisions, well this is the point where we reach the caveat to the otherwise positive test notes so far. On average, the housing collisions are quite dampened, with the bottoming out hitting on the stem pole with a light popping sound that is small, round, and not sharp in the slightest and the topping out being a more subtle version of that. This ‘poppiness’ at bottom out becomes much more noticeable and forceful as actuation speeds pick up, as well. Most strangely in all of this is that it is not this poppiness that is inconsistent from switch to switch, but rather the minimum typing speed it takes to begin unlocking this more poppy feeling; Some switches seem to take more of a beating than others before beginning to push back at bottom out. Is this something that most people are likely to notice in a full keyboard builds? Probably not. While this isn’t something that I think you would need to cherry pick through your Hojicha Reserve switches to weed out, it is still something you may notice if you’re someone as picky as me.

Sound

Given that the last few switch reviews have broken away from this mold a bit, I’m excited to return back to my age old switch reviewing mantra with the Hojicha Reserves and say that their sound notes pretty closely match that of their push feeling notes above. The use of the term ‘sub-snappy’ in describing the tactile bumps of these switches is particularly useful here in that they really don’t contribute anything to the overall sound profile of the switches and thus exist just below the surface of the sound of these switches despite their actual feeling. As a result of this, and the good amount of factory lube which prevents all scratch across the batch of switches that I received, the sound profile of the Hojicha Reserves is almost entirely driven by the combination of the bottoming out and the typing speed they are used at. At a normal rate of typing, these switches are probably in the middle of the spectrum in terms of overall volume with a noticeable but not overly loud poppy, round sounding bottom out that hits from the stem pole colliding with the POM bottom housings. As typing speeds pick up though, these switches increase in volume and sharpness pretty rapidly – more so than I remember most switches having done in general in the past. The one saving grace to this rapid increase in aggressiveness of the bottoming outs at higher actuation speeds is that it more or less smooths over any of the inconsistency in starting noted in the push feel section above. When typing at slower actuation speeds, the ‘some switches popping earlier than others’ phenomenon is a bit more apparent to the ears.

Wobble

While none of the notes provided to me by Invokeys regarding the development process discussed iterating designs and/or choosing specific housings and stems to minimize stem wobble, it’s apparent that some care was put into these switches regarding this metric at some point in time. These have among the least amount of stem wobble I’ve ever recall having seen in a BSUN switch before and only have a minor amount of N/S and E/W direction stem wobble. Even though there is the most minor amount of variation between switches on this point, even the “worst” of this batch that I received is still distinctly better than the average modern mechanical keyboard switch.

Measurements

If you’re into this level of detail about your switches, you should know that I have a switch measurement sheet that logs all of this data, as well as many other cool features which can be found under the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking on the card above. Known as the ‘Measurement Sheet’, this sheet typically gets updated weekly and aims to take physical measurements of various switch components to compare mold designs on a brand-by-brand basis as well as provide a rough frankenswitching estimation sheet for combining various stems and top housings.

Figure 23: Numerical details regarding the stock Hojicha Reserve switch force curve diagram.

Have you ever wanted to be bombarded with more switch data than you’ve ever seen at any point in your life before? Consider checking out the ‘Force Curve Repository’ hosted on my GitHub that contains all force curves that I take both within and outside of these full-length reviews. In addition to having these graphs above, I have various other versions of the graphs, raw data, and my processed data all available for over 1000 different switches for you to use however you see fit. Check it out via the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking any of the force curve cards above.

Break In

Break In Notes

17,000 Actuations

- At 17,000 actuations, the only real change in the Hojicha Reserve switches that was noticeable was that of an increased prevalence of a ‘ploppy’ sound near the top end of the bottom out of the switch. While normally I would chalk this up to being due to factory lube migration during the break in process, the fact that these switches don’t feel any more or less smooth than their stock counterparts makes this a bit hard of an explanation to choose.

34,000 Actuations

- At 34,000 actuations, it becomes apparently clear that lube migration has occurred in the Hojicha Reserve switches broken in to this point. In addition to the ‘ploppy’ note made above still being relevant here, there is also an increased prevalence of squeaking from the point of contact between the stem legs and the leaves in these switches. While it is subtle, it does still allow me to be able to pick these switches out from their stock counterparts blindfolded.

- In addition to the sound changes, there is a subtle inconsistency in the smoothness of different points in the downstrokes of switches broken in thus far.

51,000 Actuations

- Surprisingly, the changes in the Hojicha Reserve switches appear to have stopped at 34,000 actuations as the batch broken in this far had testing notes that were effectively identical to those described above.

- Even more surprising to me is the fact that the switches broken in to even 51,000 actuations did not have any noticeable change in their stem wobble over their stock counterparts. I can’t recall many switches having made it this far into break in testing without budging on this metric at all before.

Figure 25: Comparative force curve diagram showing no substantial change in the force curves of the Hojicha Reserve switches throughout the break in process.

Other

It’s sure been quite a minute since I’ve had something worthy of an ‘Other’ section to include in a switch review in some time. For those of you who are newer readers, this optional section is usually included in order to document interesting packaging included with switches as I have nowhere else to share this information. Since there is a good amount of information present on the 18-count bags of Reserve switches from Invokeys, I wanted to add on this section to show what these bags look like on the front and back. Below you will find photos of the packaging of the Hojicha Reserve, Matcha Reserve, and Pea Flower switches.

Figure 26: Front side of the Matcha Reserve, Hojicha Reserve, and Pea Flower switch packaging upon their release.

Figure 27: Back side of the Matcha Reserve switch packaging upon release.

Figure 28: Back side of the Hojicha Reserve switch packaging upon release.

Figure 29: Back side of the Pea Flower switch packaging upon release.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Tactile Switches

Note – These are not aimed at being comprehensive comparisons between all factors of these switches as this would simply be too long for this writeup. These are little notes of interest I generated when comparing these switches to the Hojicha Reserve switches side by side.

Figure 30: Switches for comparison. (L-R, Top-Bot: Everfree Grayish Tactile, Cherry MX Purple, MODE Tomorrow Blue, Novelkeys Cream Tactile, Tecsee Middle Switch Tactile, and Zealio V1 Redux (62g))

Everfree Grayish Tactile

- In terms of straight up, head-to-head smoothness, the factory lubing of the Hojicha Reserve switches is noticeably better and produces a smoother feeling switch than that of the EverFree Grayish Tactiles.

- Despite these two switches having nearly identically shaped tactile bumps according to their comparative force curves below, the Hojicha Reserve switches do feel just a touch more rounded in hand than the Grayish Tactiles. This could possibly be a function of them existing at an overall higher weight and thus feeling more substantial than the Grayish Tactiles, though I’m not entirely sure why this is the case.

- The Hojicha Reserve switches have noticeably less N/S and E/W stem wobble to them than the Everfree Grayish Tactile switches.

Cherry MX Purple

- While these two switches have a fairly similar overall volume and sound presence to them when used in boards, the Cherry MX Purple’s sound profile is largely driven by its large, leathery scratch whereas the sound profile of the Hojicha Reserve switches is much more driven by the poppy bottoming out that changes with typing speeds.

- The tactile bumps in the Hojicha Reserve switches not only feel longer, but also more subtle and smooth than the comparatively shorter, punchier feeling tactile bumps of the Cherry MX Purple switches.

- Comparing the stem wobble of basically any switch against one made by Cherry is hardly a fair comparison, and yet it still needs to be done. As expected, the Hojicha Reserve switches have less N/S and E/W stem wobble than the MX Purples.

MODE Tomorrow

- In spite of what their comparative force curves below would lead you to believe, the tactile bumps in the Hojicha Reserve switches feel noticeably more punchy and present than the MODE Tomorrow switches.

- There is just the tiniest amount more stem wobble in the MODE Tomorrow switches than there is in the Hojicha Reserve switches.

- Much like with the Cherry MX Purple comparison notes made above, the MODE Tomorrow switches have a much more low key, scratch-driven sound profile that is accentuated by a tiny, kind of sharp sounding tactile bump when compared directly to the Hojicha Reserve switches. In doing these comparison notes here, its become much more evident just how much of a factor the ever so slightly longer stem pole and ever so slightly shortened bottoming out point affects the sound of these switches.

Novelkeys Cream Tactile

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, the Novelkeys Cream Tactiles are the most different from the Hojicha Reserve switches in terms of both their sound and push feeling. Just focusing on sound, these switches are louder, sharper, snappier, and scratchier than the Hojicha Reserve switches by an absolute mile.

- As for the tactile bumps of the Cream Tactiles, they feel significantly more forceful and have a snappy, punchy feeling tactile bump that makes the Hojicha Reserve switches appear subtle and demure by comparison.

- There is noticeably less stem wobble in the Hojicha Reserve switches in both directions than there is in the Novelkeys Cream Tactile switches.

Tecsee Middle Switch Tactile

- The comparative force curve of these two switches below really does well to highlight the differences in the tactile bumps between them. The Tecsee Middle Switch Tactiles are shorter, lighter, snappier, and altogether smaller feeling than the wider, slower, and more meanderingly subtle tactile bump of the Hojicha Reserves.

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, the average Tecsee Middle Switch Tactile sounds the most similar to the average, low typing speed Hojicha Reserve switch. This comparison is as narrow as it is because the Middle switches have a greater variability than the Hojicha Reserves and the Hojicha Reserves are more prone to typing speed-based sound changes than the Middle switches.

- There is much less stem wobble in the N/S and E/W directions of Hojicha Reserve switches than there is in the Tecsee Middle Switch Tactiles.

Zealio V1 Redux (62g)

- The Zealio V1 Redux switches are louder, snappier, and have a bit more spring ping to their overall tone than the much more reserved, subtle sounding Hojicha Reserve switches.

- Much like a few of the switches on this comparison list already, the Zealio V1 Redux switches have tactile bumps which are shorter, sharper, and more aggressive feeling than the wider, sub-snappy feeling of the Hojicha Reserves’ tactile bumps.

- There is a bit more N/S and E/W direction stem wobble in the Zealio V1 Redux switches than there is in the Hojicha Reserves.

Scores and Statistics

Note – These scores are not necessarily completely indicative of the nuanced review above. If you’ve skipped straight to this section, I can only recommend that you at least glance at the other sections above in order to get a stronger idea of my opinion about these switches.