June 30, 2026
Tea with no tea? Internet spirals
Tokyo has only two barley tea makers, we visited one to see how mugicha is made
Tokyo’s tiny barley tea scene has fans thirsty, nostalgic, and suddenly on a snack hunt
TLDR: A Tokyo factory visit revealed that mugicha, a beloved summer drink, is roasted barley infused in water — and only two makers still produce it in Tokyo. Commenters turned the story into a mix of nostalgia, shopping tips, and thirsty demands to find it outside Japan.
Tokyo apparently has just two barley tea makers left, and that fact alone sent the comment section into full "wait, only two?!" mode. The visit to Ogawa Sangyo, a factory in Edogawa, revealed the big surprise that has non-Japanese readers doing a double take: barley tea isn’t actually tea at all. There are no tea leaves involved — just barley, roasted with serious care, including a traditional direct-fire method and even sand in the oven to spread the heat evenly. Honestly, the most delightfully chaotic detail was the reporter saying the roasted grains tasted like popcorn with extra crunch, which feels like the kind of sentence that creates snack cravings on sight.
But the real action was in the reactions. One camp was instantly desperate to find mugicha outside Japan, with people basically posting in a state of beverage envy. Another group jumped in with helpful cross-cultural tea discourse: one commenter noted it’s also known as boricha in Korean and can be found at H Mart, while another shouted out houjicha as another roasted favorite. That kicked off a low-key identity swirl of "Japanese mugicha vs Korean boricha vs roasted tea cousins" — not exactly a war, but definitely the kind of delicious comment-section detour the internet lives for.
And then there were the pure fans: nostalgic drinkers declaring they grew up with it and one power user bragging about consuming "copious amounts" of cold mugicha because it’s cheap and amazingly refreshing. The vibe? Half wholesome summer obsession, half global scavenger hunt, with a side of someone please sell me the crunchy roasted barley as a snack already.
Key Points
- •Ogawa Sangyo, located in Edogawa Ward, is one of only two mugicha makers with a production facility in Tokyo.
- •The article states that barley tea contains no tea leaves and is made from barley alone.
- •Ogawa Sangyo sources domestic barley mainly from Ibaraki, Tochigi, and Toyama prefectures and uses two barley strains.
- •The company uses a direct-fire roasting method instead of the convection roasting used by many mass producers.
- •Its roasting process includes sand to distribute heat evenly, with an initial one-minute roast at 250 degrees Celsius before a second roasting stage.