THE JAPAN NEWS

 

Japan’s traditional beverage of choice in the summer is mugicha, or barley tea. Ogawa Sangyo Co.’s factory in Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, produces high-quality barley tea and is filled with heat and the fragrant flavor of roasted barley.

The production process consists solely of roasting a variety of barley called Rokujo omugi, but extremely high skills are required for the work.
Silica sands are mixed in barley corn so that heat can sufficiently reach each kernel of the corn, which is roasted for about a minute at 250 C. The barley corn is then moved into another stone stove and heated again at 180 C.

In the summer, when the factory is at its busiest, it handles 1.5 tons of barley a day.

 

Drinking barley tea helps people cool down, but the workers who produce the beverage are soaked in sweat. Though four electric fans work at full power inside the factory, the room temperature can rise to nearly 50 C in this season.

After finishing a day’s work, employees enjoy glasses of barley tea.
Yoshio Ogawa, 61, company president, also drank up a glass of barley tea. He is the third president of the company, which started making barley tea 108 years ago.

 

“The flavor is sweet when I take the tea in my mouth, and the aftertaste is refreshing. It brings back fond memories, doesn’t it?” Ogawa said.
Ogawa has a dream that “people in other countries will enjoy the taste of barley tea.” To that end, he attends an English conversation school and has given demonstrations of Japanese barley tea abroad.

Barley tea bags made by the company are sold in high-end supermarkets and via the internet. A pack of 20 tea bags, weighing 260 grams in total, is priced at ¥400, not including consumption tax.

By Mari Sugiura / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer