mugicha (roasted barley tea)
ingredient / ingredient-mugicha
麦茶 / Hordeum vulgare
Mugicha (roasted barley tea) is a noncaffeinated Japanese beverage made by roasting barley and then decocting it. Roasting produces aroma compounds and tastes, including sweetness and bitterness.
On this page (4 sections)
Reading the bitterness
Even barley tea roasted to the same shade of color does not necessarily show the same flavor development if the raw material differs. In a study that matched 8 barley samples from 6 prefectures to a similar roast color, put 10 g into 1 L of water, and extracted it at room temperature for 2 hours, 16 experienced staff members rated the strength of aroma and in-mouth flavor on a 1-to-7 point scale. Restricted to the 7 six-row barley samples, there was a positive correlation between the raw material's protein content and flavor strength (ρ=0.755, p<0.05).
In the same 7 samples, the strength of aroma and the strength of in-mouth flavor also correlated (ρ=0.929). However, neither flavor nor aroma had a significant correlation with the overall evaluation. In this small comparison, strong aroma or flavor and being rated favorably overall did not turn out to be the same thing. Nor is this a test that rated bitterness separately.
There is also a 1989 study that compared combinations of processing steps. Hulled and hulless barley were crushed into 4 to 10 pieces, soaked in room-temperature water for 20 minutes, roasted at 250℃ to a light-brown or dark-brown color, and decocted. The abstract states that the combination of crushing, soaking, and dark-brown roasting significantly increased the strength of aroma and taste. However, the number of panelists and the scale are unknown, and the individual effect of each operation and any change in bitterness are not known.
Sources for this overview
Checked for this overview: Supports the 8 raw-material samples, the roasting and extraction conditions, the 16-person scale, and the correlation between protein content and flavor strength in the 7 six-row barley samples / Supports the correlation between aroma and in-mouth flavor, the lack of significant correlation with the overall evaluation, and the caveat that this is not a bitterness scale
Effects of roasting conditions on quality and yields of barley tea
Checked for this overview: Supports the crushing, soaking, and 250℃ roasting conditions for the 2 cultivars, the abstract's results on the strength of aroma and taste, and the caveat that the full text was not confirmed
Structured claims — open a section to read each claim's confidence, evidence and limits
Sensory (5)
Scope: Layer: food. 20 infusions prepared from 11 commercial barley-tea products. A trained in-house panel of 10 rated them on a 5-point scale from 0 to 4 using a barley-tea flavor wheel of 28 aroma terms, overall aroma intensity, and 4 taste terms (sweetness, bitterness, body, clean finish).
Note: Confirmed from the full text (2026-09-25). The 5 clusters included infusions with sweet aromas and strong sweetness, and infusions with bitter aromas such as coffee, cacao, and burnt together with strong bitterness. Burnt and cacao, defined as bitter aromas, fell into the same descriptor cluster as the taste term "bitterness"; recorded as a case where aroma descriptors and bitterness ratings corresponded within the same samples.
Show data
ingredient-mugicha —has_defining_sensory_theme→ "5 clusters, ranging from a type with a sweet aroma and strong sweetness to a type with a bitter aroma and strong bitterness"Scope: Layer: food. 20 extracts prepared with water, hot water, or boiling from 11 commercially available barley-tea products (descriptive-term cluster analysis).
Note: Same source (Goto et al. 2019) as the classification of mugicha aroma and bitterness descriptors, checked in full text. This claim adds a separate finding: the correlation between the colour depth of the infusion and the bitter-type descriptor group.
Show data
ingredient-mugicha —has_perceived_bitterness_associated_with→ "Absorbance of the extract at 440 nm (an indicator of color intensity)"Scope: 8 barley samples from the 2008 harvest in 6 prefectures were adjusted to a similar roast color, and correlation analysis was performed on 7 of them that were six-row barley. 16 experienced staff members, 1-to-7 point scale
Note: This is a correlation evaluating flavor strength, not a causal effect on bitterness intensity or preference. Growing region and cultivar differ at the same time.
Show data
ingredient-mugicha —has_sensory_response→ "In the 7 six-row barley samples, there was a positive correlation between the raw material's protein content and the strength of in-mouth flavor of water-extracted barley tea (ρ=0.755, p<0.05)"Scope: Barley roasted to a similar crushed-sample L value was extracted at 10 g/L, at room temperature for 2 hours, and rated by 16 experienced staff members on a 1-to-7 point scale
Note: The correlation coefficient between aroma and flavor is ρ=0.929. The body text gives p<0.05, while the ** in Table 3 and its footnote give the more precise p<0.01, so this is treated here as a significant correlation per the body text. The correlation coefficients with the overall evaluation were −0.291 for flavor and −0.411 for aroma, with no significance mark. Strength is not read as preference.
Show data
ingredient-mugicha —has_sensory_response→ "In the 7 six-row barley samples, the strength of aroma and the strength of in-mouth flavor correlated, but neither had a significant correlation with the overall evaluation"Scope: A comparison in which hulled Ol-bori and hulless Youngsan-bori barley were crushed into 4 to 10 pieces, soaked in room-temperature water for 20 minutes, then roasted at 250℃ to a light-brown or dark-brown color and decocted
Note: Full text not obtained. This is the result of combining multiple operations; it does not show the individual effect of each operation alone, bitterness, or preference.
Show data
ingredient-mugicha —has_sensory_response→ "The abstract reports that combining the crushing of barley, soaking in room-temperature water, and roasting to a dark-brown color significantly increased the strength of the barley tea's aroma and taste"