Mugicha, or Japanese roasted barley tea, is normally served plain, usually without even sugar, warm or cold. But with all the bubble tea stores putting non-conventional teas on the menu, I decided to experiment making Milk Mugicha to see how it tasted... it ended being more like a mugicha latte.
I used a popular mugicha brand called Sanei Kosan from Saga Prefecture, Japan.
Saga is apparently the most well known prefecture in Japan for producing barley. But you could probably get any good brand. I recommend brewing it yourself so that you can get it thick and fragrant. If you buy those bottled ones, they tend to be more diluted and you probably cannot add as much milk if you still want to taste the roasted barley fragrance over it.
The downside of this brand is that the sachets are not individually wrapped, so you have to ensure that you keep what you don't use dry. The packets also come in pairs, and each makes 1.5L of tea, so you have to separate them.
The instructions say to boil 1 packet in 1.5L of water for 3 minutes. I think some of that water evaporates too.
I brewed mine thicker because I wanted a stronger flavour to match the milk. It was almost coffee-like in colour. This is in stark contrast to the light brown ones that are served to you at restaurants.
I added enough fresh milk to this to get the colour in the first image. It was about 4 parts of milk to 1 part of this. But I think even adding slightly more milk is ok due to how thick it was.
Overall, the taste has some similarities to fragrant roasted oolong due to the roasted barley's slightly floral and mellow fragrance. I would say that it is a mix of oolong mellow fragrance with toasty grain or cereal fragrance, like genmai fragrance. There is also a malty fullness, like cereal milk or Nestum milk, but without the sugar.
I liked it quite a lot, and think it would even do well with a bit of sugar. I added evaporated milk on a second occasion and actually preferred that due to the increased sweetness, and the extra creaminess and slight acidity in the evaporated milk added more fullness and balance to the tast overall.
I tried it both warm and cold. I prefer the cold version as it has a light, mellow and refreshing feel, like a sugarless well-roasted fragrant iced oolong milk tea. The warm version brings out the comforting cereal-like notes better, but it also seems to accentuate a slightly bitter malt taste, a bit like tannins, which I did not like as much. So if it is warm, I would recommend diluting the tea with more water or perhaps adding more milk.
Discover other interesting non-coffee milk drinks
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- Mongolian Milk Tea
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