Tokyo has only two barley tea makers, we visited one to see how mugicha is made | Hacker News Reader

Tokyo has only two barley tea makers, we visited one to see how mugicha is made

soranews24.com

163 pointszdw50 comments

I really enjoyed that article. Documenting the entire process helps me understand what the final product should taste like. I love the smell of barley and had never considered roasting any. The fact that it apparently smells a bit like popcorn is pretty exciting.

I am growing buckwheat right now and have a small test plot of rice. I am hoping to be able to get meaningful yields after this first-year proof of concept dry run. I have already harvested enough buckwheat for a nice, steaming bowl of buckwheat. My rice is producing kernels now though I only have a few dozen plants. I am pretty excited about this.

I love how toasting something transforms the flavor profile and use that to enhance flavors of soups and other dishes. I toast pecans, walnuts, almonds, and some garden spices lightly and add them to spice mixes after grinding.

Thanks for this article.

There is also another article linked at the bottom about someone who drank a bottle of barley tea that had been left outside for months.

https://soranews24.com/2023/05/02/we-try-a-half-drunk-bottle...

I love stuff like that! Thanks!

Roasted barley is also appreciated in Italy prepared like an espresso (Caffe d'Orzo), and in Peru as a kind of cappuccino with brown sugar (Pinol).

Is it well regarded in either place?

I've somehow not come across these preparations. I like barley tea and have made it via other coffee methods. (cold brew/french press.) So I guess espresso makes some sense.

(Also thank you doodlebugging for the other link. I love sora news. I don't know if it's the cadence or playful sincerity or what.)

YW. I got stuck for a bit there reading some of those articles. Very fun. Good writing about things that I need to know more about. Like you I love the sense that they are trying to have fun with their writing.

I believe barley coffee in Italy became popular during WW2 with coffee shortages, it retains a tinge of 'poor man's drink', but there are still fans of it and you can find it in any supermarket. I enjoyed it when I was younger, it has a nice full-bodied taste, though it lacks the kick of caffeine.

> though it lacks the kick of caffeine.

Us weaklings can’t handle espresso after lunch, or we don’t sleep.

I’m tempted to try roasting some barley myself.

This weakness is most likely due to slow caffeine metabolism.

That was the only practical thing I learned from my 23andme test results and it explained crappy night sleep quality when drinking coffee after 3 pm. Switching to decaf beans helped.

Caffè d'Orzo can't be made in an espresso machine like normal coffee. If you use ground kernels, depending on grind size, It will either clog the portafilter or be too weak.

Instead, most barley coffee is sold in instant coffee form. Most coffee bars will do it with instant barley coffee pods and a pod adapter portafilter.

You can find actual roasted barley coffee (kernels) in supermarkets though, and make it in a moka pot or a french press

Similar in Portugal, Nestle makes one called Pensal (cevada) and it’s marketed as a coffee substitute.

> Roasted barley is also appreciated in Italy prepared like an espresso (Caffe d'Orzo)

During fascism Italy was under embargo and couldn't import coffee.

So barley became a surrogate.

But I would not call it "appreciated", the only people drinking it do it to avoid caffeine in the afternoon, and generally they are very old.

Do you grind it like you would coffee?

Yes, It is also sold in every supermarket in soluble form, there's a Nestle owned brand (orzoro) and a few smaller ones (orzobimbo) which are quite popular.

I should avoid caffeine for health reasons and I usually drink milk with barley, it's quite a decent replacement for caffelatte

I appreciated it when I was in Italy and the group would order a round of espresso after dinner. It's 9 PM! I have enough trouble sleeping as is!

> what the final product should taste like

To each their own, obviously, but I find it utterly unpalatable.

Especially compared to something like genmaicha, which is absolutely delightful.

For anyone looking to try this - while they sell pre-bottled mugicha [1], I highly recommend making your own from tea bags [2].

It's incredibly easy to make - just add cold water and let it sit in the fridge for a couple hours. It also tastes so much better (in my opinion), is much cheaper, and is more environmentally friendly.

A big 2L thermos filled with mugicha and ice is a great way to stay cool in the summer.

[1] https://amzn.asia/d/04ZC4opX

[2] https://amzn.asia/d/0gF1wDf8

It’s a well-known East Asian trope but I still reminisce about going to going to my grandmas house in summer and opening the fridge to drink some home made ice cold mugicha!

Even better to avoid the tea bags which are full of microplastics (though they will impart less when unheated)

They make tea bags from paper, too.

Most paper tea bags contain plastic and a carcinogen

> Most paper tea bags also have plastic fibers used in the sealant in addition to these nylon and PET plastic tea bags.

> Even paper tea bags have an unsettling substance called epichlorohydrin added to them in order to keep them from bursting.

It's like how some people think canned drinks are better than plastic bottles (even though they're lined in plastic), or that disposable coffee cups are made from paper (lined with plastic), though the tea bag misconception is more common than these

Interesting!

Canned drinks use fewer resources than drinks in single-use bottles; and aluminum is so widely recycled, people give you money for aluminum scrap. So they are better in that sense.

Yea I’m just commenting on the health aspect

Glass bottles are also a health hazard because of plastic sealant in the cap - they can be much worse than plastic bottle products, unintuitively

Wow, I had no idea… what a lame system we have for producing these at scale.

We full our own compostable (corn fiber) tea bags, I’m guessing they also have something bad in them?

I’ve just read studies I don’t know about the full breadth of products available. I recommend just using metal personally. If you want to pre fill maybe you can buy a dozen or more metal ones for cheap.

I have several metal ones, but cleaning all the tea out of them uses a lot of water. Meh.

Try removing the easy parts quickly, then air drying it. You can knock most of it out once dried without water. You can also try using a french press which is easier to clean.

Koreans also say "tea" (차) to what supposed to be called infusion in English. Barley, brown rice, corn, Solomon's seal, and jack bean are common, but there are many more. I was confused when I was communicating about Korean tea at first in English. I introduced Korean teas, but for them they didn't have tea leaves thus not tea but infusion. If you don't know about brown rice green tea, I recommend it. It is literally a mix of green tea and brown rice. You should be able to find it in Japanese, Korean, or Chinese grocery stores.

I get high quality brown rice mix (genmaicha) in Japan directly from growers, which is packaged separately from the tea leaves. You can mix it as you use it and to the ratio that you like and which suits the tea. And adjust for less tea if wanting to avoid caffeine in the evening. (Try to avoid tea bag products, also - besides quality challenges, most tea bags have an enormous amount of microplastics.)

I was born in London. I'm surprised to hear English people were confused (or pedantic?) about the use of the word tea to describe an infusion.

It's common to hear the phrase 'herbal tea', referring to things that have no tea leaves.

Without it this joke wouldn't be possible: "Why do anarchists drink herbal tea?"

It is quite common to refer to any infusion, apart from coffee, as "tea", but you do have to be aware of context. A "cup of tea" is always English black tea, possibly with milk and/or sugar. But when offered a tea it's acceptable to question whether any infusions are available (often caffeine free) and this then may be referred to as "your tea". It is not acceptable to ask about coffee, which is not considered an infusion, unless explicitly offered, but even so, be prepared to get instant coffee unless you happened to spy a coffee machine or some beans.

I had to Google it. It’s a goodie.

‘Proper tea is theft’

Please delete this if you can. I think people need at least 5 seconds between seeing the joke and the punchline reveal.

Sorry, I only just saw this and it’s been too long and I can’t.

Also called boricha on Korean. Can find in local H Mart.

I have not tried the Japanese roasted barley variety but houjicha, roasted green tea, is excellent and can find in Japantown.

What a strange way to write a headline. “Providence RH only has 2 tortilla makers. we visited one to see how tortillas are made”.

Yea, Tokyo is not known for being a tea growing spot

I guess I’m being too picky but the headline sounds like clickbait to me. a less clickbait title would just be something like: “We visited a Barley Tea factory to see how it’s made”.

> Tokyo is not known for being a tea growing spot

Keep in mind that mugicha is made purely from barley. No Camellia sinensis involved at all.

There’s s fun subgenre of blog titles in Japanese like なんとか作ってみた／やってみた. Like “we tried something”/“we did something” etc

A great sort of tone setter title format. Basically you know you’re about to just read someone talk about their experience in a casual way. Feel like everyone should try writing blog post titles like that

“I installed Arch Linux on my toaster” “I dug a whole in my back yard” “We made a very big paper airplane” is going to lead to very interesting blog post vibes

English equivalent of that is DIY xyz or xyz for fun and profit, it's just a thing-comma-Japan-thing.

I consume copious amounts of cold mugicha. It's amazingly refreshing and very cheap.

Interesting roasting process with high heat 2x for 1 minute. Quite different than say kilning pilsner malt at low heat for a much longer time. Sure speeds up production, I bet!

It's not the same, but I still remember the first time I was served genmai cha (roasted rice tea) at a sushi restaurant. I loved it and inquired, the server was kind enough to show me the actual tea bag — it was Yamamotoyama. Available lots of places in the US, but I used to buy it at a Japanese grocery store.

Apparently it has its own holiday.

June 1 is officially "Mugicha Day" (麦茶の日), designated back in 1986 by the barley tea manufacturers' cooperative, and a MyVoice survey has it as the #1 summer drink for 40%+ of Japanese respondents, per Unseen Japan [0].

[0] https://unseen-japan.com/mugicha-japanese-barley-tea-history...

Paolo from Tokyo (https://www.youtube.com/@PaolofromTOKYO) has a ton of videos about various Japanese businesses, usually focused around the job of one person.

I wonder if you can get this outside Japan. I'd love to try some.

You can find it at many Asian groceries worldwide. It's also not exclusively Japanese

Search for "ITO EN Mugicha Barley Tea".

There are other brands of course, but I enjoy this one and it is easy to get at my local asian foods market (as well as online).

They carry it at my local HMART.

I love barley in soup. I'd rather just eat it :-)

Iced mugicha on a warm day is fantastic

so cool! big fan of barley tea growing up with it

why not both?

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