Roasted Barley Tea substitute

Best substitute

Barley you toast yourself

Use ¼ cup toasted grain for every 1 liter water

Best for hot and iced mugicha or boricha

Close match

The commercial product is nothing more than roasted unhulled barley, so pearl barley or hulled barley from the grain aisle gets you almost exactly there.

Other roasted barley tea substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Roasted corn tea
Different taste
Use the same amount
Sold as oksusu-cha in Korean shops, often blended with barley in the same bag.
What changes
Roasted corn kernels steeped the same way.
Best for
iced summer drinking, everyday table tea, serving with grilled or spicy food, children, since it is caffeine free and mild
Rounder, distinctly sweeter and less bitter than barley, with an unmistakable popcorn note. Where barley tea has a dry, almost coffee-like finish, corn tea finishes sweet, which makes it more drinkable on its own and slightly less good as a foil for rich or spicy food. The color is a lighter gold rather than deep amber. Still not gluten free if the bag is a barley and corn blend, so read the label if that matters.
3Roasted brown rice tea
Different taste
Use the same amount
Sold as hyeonmi-cha in Korea, and it is the same toasted rice that goes into genmaicha, brewed without the green tea.
What changes
Naturally gluten free.
Best for
gluten-free barley tea, hot tea with rice-based meals, a lighter everyday brew, cold brew
Lighter in color and body, popcorn-sweet, with much less of the dry bitterness that gives barley tea its backbone. Alongside a fatty grilled dish, barley tea cuts and brown rice tea does not, so it reads more as a gentle hot drink than as a palate cleanser. It is the easiest swap to find in a Western supermarket if you can buy genmaicha, though that brings green tea and caffeine with it.
4Roasted buckwheat tea
Close match
Use the same amount
Sobacha in Japan, memil-cha in Korea.
What changes
Toasted buckwheat groats, which despite the name are not wheat and contain no gluten.
Best for
gluten-free and coeliac-safe barley tea, hot drinking, a nuttier, more savory cup, using the spent grains, which are pleasant to eat
The closest of the gluten-free options to barley tea's savory character: nutty, earthy and a little more assertive, with a faint honeyed edge. It brews a similar amber color. Steep rather than boil hard, since long boiling turns buckwheat slightly slimy. Worth knowing that buckwheat is itself an allergen for some people, so it is not a universal safe swap.
5Chicory or dandelion root
Different taste
About two thirds as much, to taste
The right swap when barley tea is standing in for coffee, as caffe d'orzo does in Italy.
What changes
Roasted root rather than roasted grain, brewed strong and dark.
Best for
caffeine-free coffee replacement, barley coffee in a moka pot or espresso machine, a dark, bitter after-dinner cup, iced coffee style drinks
Considerably more bitter and more coffee-like than barley, with a woody, slightly molasses edge, so it is closer to the point when you want something that reads as coffee and further from the point when you want a light table drink. Use less than the barley quantity or the cup turns harsh. Chicory is also often blended with roasted barley in commercial coffee substitutes, which is worth checking on the label.
6Plain water, hot or cold
Different taste
Use the same amount
The honest answer when barley tea is doing the job it does in most Korean and Japanese homes, which is being the everyday drinking water on the table.
What changes
Best for
drinking with a meal, anywhere barley tea is served as water, recipes where it is only the liquid
You lose the toasty aroma and the very slight bitterness that makes barley tea good with rich food, and you lose nothing else, because barley tea contributes no acid, no fat and negligible sugar. If you want a hint of the toasted note without buying anything, drop a single tablespoon of plain uncooked rice or barley into the pan, toast it for two minutes, and steep it in a mug of hot water for five. That is a fair approximation of one cup.

What is Roasted Barley Tea?

Roasted Barley Tea is an infusion of dark-roasted barley grains, sold as mugicha in Japan, boricha in Korea and caffe d'orzo or barley coffee in Italy, and it brews caffeine-free with a toasty, nutty, faintly bitter flavor close to very weak coffee.

Cooking tips

There are two brewing methods and they taste different. Hot: bring the water to a boil, add the grain or bag, simmer five to ten minutes, then strain or lift the bag out. Cold: a quarter cup of grain or one large bag per one and a half to two liters of cold water in the fridge for four to eight hours, which gives a sweeter, cleaner, less bitter drink and is how it is usually made in summer. Do not boil it for half an hour, because the starch leaches out and the brew turns thick and sourly bitter.
Take the grains or the bag out once it has brewed. Barley tea left sitting on the grain keeps extracting and goes astringent, and unlike rooibos it does not stay pleasant indefinitely.
Barley tea spoils faster than real tea, because it carries starch and sugars rather than tannin. Refrigerate it as soon as it has cooled, drink it within two or three days, and throw it out if it smells sour or feels at all slippery. A jug left on the counter overnight in summer is a genuine risk of going off, which is not true of a jug of black tea.
Use it in place of water for cooking. Barley tea makes an excellent toasty base for a light broth, for steaming rice, or for the cold broth in Korean noodle dishes, and it adds color and a roasted background note without adding salt, fat or acid.
For the Italian style, caffe d'orzo, the grain is ground finely and run through a moka pot or espresso machine rather than steeped, which is why it tastes far more concentrated than a mug of mugicha made from the same grain. If you are trying to replace an espresso, grind your toasted barley fine and brew it under pressure rather than steeping it.

Frequently asked questions

Does roasted barley tea have caffeine?

None at all. It is a grain infusion, not tea from the Camellia sinensis plant, which is exactly why it is served to children and drunk late at night across Korea and Japan, and why Italians drink caffe d'orzo in the evening. The only thing to check is blends, since some bagged products mix barley with green tea or with black tea.

Is barley tea gluten free?

No. Barley contains gluten, and although the grain is strained out, the brewed liquid is generally not considered safe for coeliac disease. If you need a gluten-free version of the same drink, roasted brown rice tea and roasted buckwheat tea are the two direct swaps, and roasted corn tea also works as long as the bag is pure corn rather than a corn and barley blend.

Can I make barley tea from ordinary pearl barley?

Yes, and it is very close to the bought version. Toast a quarter cup of pearl or hulled barley in a dry pan over medium heat, stirring constantly, for eight to twelve minutes until it is deep chestnut brown and smells strongly of toast, then simmer it in a liter of water for five to ten minutes and strain. Untoasted barley makes a cloudy, starchy, bland liquid that tastes like barley water rather than barley tea, so the roasting is the whole point.

Can I drink barley tea instead of coffee?

It has been done as a matter of course in Italy for generations, sold as caffe d'orzo, and it works better than you might expect, especially finely ground and brewed in a moka pot rather than steeped. It is toasty and mildly bitter with a similar dark color, but it has less body, no crema and no caffeine hit. If what you want is something that genuinely reads as strong coffee, chicory or a chicory and barley blend gets closer.

Can I just use water instead of barley tea?

In most cases yes. In a Korean or Japanese home barley tea largely is the drinking water, served hot in winter and cold in summer, so replacing it with water changes the aroma and nothing else. It matters more in cooking, where the toasted note is doing real work, such as in a cold noodle broth or as the liquid for a light soup. There the least-bad free option is to toast a spoonful of any grain you have and steep that.

Related substitutes

More beverages substitutes

Roasted Barley Tea substitute

Other roasted barley tea substitutes

2Roasted corn tea

3Roasted brown rice tea

4Roasted buckwheat tea

5Chicory or dandelion root

6Plain water, hot or cold