Mugicha
麦茶
Roasted barley tea — caffeine-free, faintly sweet, the sound of a Japanese summer. Roast your own grain or cold-brew a jug; from warlord's mugiyu to the fridge.
By Japanese Cookbook Kitchen · July 6, 2026
中国 ChūgokuMuromachi era, 1336–1573
飲- Prep
- 5 min
- Cook
- 10 min
- Serves
- 8
- Level
- Beginner
Mugicha is the taste of a Japanese summer: caffeine-free, faintly sweet, toasty, and served so cold it beads the glass. Its ancestor is old. A roasted barley infusion called mugiyu was already being drunk in the Muromachi and Sengoku periods — one of those plain, grain-based brews attributed, in the usual half-legend way, to warlords and their camps — before it settled into the teahouses of Edo as a cheap, refreshing pour for travelers on the road.
Then the refrigerator finished the story. By the Shōwa era, iced mugicha in a big jug became the drink Japan defaults to from June to September, poured for children precisely because there's no caffeine in it. Making it well comes down to two decisions: roast the barley dark enough to actually taste of something, and cold-brew it if you have the hours, since the slow cold extraction is what gives mugicha that clean, round, un-bitter sweetness. Keep a jug going all summer. That's the whole tradition.
If you roast the barley yourself, take it two shades darker than looks sensible — right up to deep coffee brown. Under-roasted grain brews thin, pale, and papery.
板前の一言 · A word from the kitchen
Ingredients材料
Serves 8
Roast-your-own (optional)
- 60 gunhulled or pearled barley — skip this group entirely and use packaged roasted mugicha grains or brew bags if you'd rather not roast
The brew
- 30 groasted barley (from above, or store-bought) — roughly a heaped 1/4 cup, or one large tea sack
- 1.5 Lcold or filtered water
- ice, to serve
Method作り方
Step 1: Roast the barley (if starting raw)
Toast the raw barley in a dry, heavy pan over medium heat, shaking almost constantly, for eight to ten minutes. It will smell like popcorn, then like toast, then like coffee — chase it to a deep brown. This is the entire flavor, so don't stop early.
Step 2: Cold-brew for clarity (the summer method)
Put the roasted barley in a jug, pour over the cold water, and refrigerate six to eight hours or overnight. Cold brewing gives the cleanest, sweetest, least bitter mugicha — this is what lives in nearly every Japanese fridge from June to September.
Step 3: Or hot-brew for speed
In a hurry, bring the water to a boil, drop in the barley, turn off the heat, and steep five to ten minutes. Longer steeping deepens the roast flavor but can turn it slightly bitter, so taste as you go, then strain.
Step 4: Strain, chill, and serve
Strain out the grain or lift the sack — leaving it in indefinitely makes the tea cloudy and dull. Chill, pour over ice, and drink freely. It keeps two or three days cold, though it rarely lasts that long in summer.
道具 · The tools
Equipment
Fine sieve / muslin
こし器For straining dashi clear and dusting flour — line it with muslin or paper for the cleanest stock.
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Questions from the kitchen
Does mugicha have caffeine?
No — it's made from roasted barley, not tea leaves, so it's naturally caffeine-free. That's exactly why it's given to children and drunk by the litre through a Japanese summer without anyone thinking twice about bedtime.
Where does mugicha come from?
Roasted-grain infusions are old — a barley brew called mugiyu was drunk in Japan by the Muromachi and Sengoku eras, later a staple of Edo-period teahouses, and by the Shōwa years, with the home refrigerator, iced mugicha became the default drink of summer. Every era found the same simple idea.
Can I reuse the barley for a second batch?
You can stretch it once for a weaker, mellower brew, but the first extraction takes most of the flavor. If you roasted your own, it's cheap enough to start fresh — and fresh grain is where all the fragrance lives.
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