Mugicha (barley tea) is the flavor of summer in Japan

[AsahinaKimi]

posted on 5 Jun 2013 by maki

When we were growing up, my mother frowned upon most sugary drinks for us kids. So things like sodas were generally not stocked in the house - an ice-filled cup of Coke was a great treat whenever we went out to eat. Things like Calpis, or when we lived in the U.S. Kool-Aid, were strictly rationed. The cool drink we always had in the refrigerator was mugicha, or barley tea. Even when we lived in White Plains, New York, there were always a couple of jugs of mugicha in the large American refrigerator.

Mugicha is traditionally made by briefly simmering roasted barley grains. It has a toasty taste, with slight bitter undertones, but much less so than tea made from tea leaves. To me, it’s much more refreshing to drink than plain water.

My anti-sugar mother always made sugarless mugicha, but my younger self craved the sweetened mugicha that most of my friends’ mothers seemed to make. I always begged my mother to make sweet mugicha, but she always refused. Some day, when I am the one making mugicha, I’ll put all the sugar I want in it, I used to think. So, when I reached my teen years, and my mother was back working full time, I used to pour rivers of sugar into the mugicha. My little sisters loved it. I’m not sure if it made them more hyper than usual, though I have vague memories of my younger sister sitting on my head when she got bored.

Now that I am nominally an adult, I much prefer unsweetened mugicha. I’m growing more like my mother as I get older, a rather scary thought.

How to make mugicha


You can buy mugicha in three formats. The most traditional kind is just loose barley grains that have been roasted to a deep, dark brown. The second, and most popular are mugicha tea bags meant for cold brewing. Then there are ‘hybrid’ type tea bags, which can be simmered or cold brewed.

more..http://justhungry.com/mugicha-barley-tea-flavor-summer

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. You can also buy mugicha ready mixed in cartons or bottles in Japanese supermarkets and conbinis

It's a great summer refresher.

When I went to Japan in June 2012, it was really humid when I landed. My first purchase after landing at Narita was a bottle of mugicha from an airport conbini.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

2. I prefer Chinese Jasmine Tea. :) But being in China, I'm partial to their tea more.

[Kablooie]

3. Mugicha is okay for summer, but I personally preferred Uroncha. (Oolong tea)

It is often more refreshing to drink cold tea instead of soft drinks on a hot, humid summer day.