Gluten in Barley Tea 麦茶のグルテン

Japan has quite the arsenal of surprise gluten attacks, but perhaps none so ninja-status as mugi cha.

Let's start by setting the scene. Perhaps you are the home of a close Japanese friend. This friend is so close that he or she has listened to your entire explanation of all the gluten-containing food products you must avoid and still graciously consented to have you over for dinner. As is typical of the culture, you are offered some refreshing iced tea while you wait for dinner to be served. You then happily eat your definitively gluten-free meal. Several hours later you are horrified to find that you have been glutened! But how?

The culprit is mugi cha, otherwise known as barley tea.

The Japanese says "the mugi cha is chilled."

Mugi cha, like all herbal "teas," is not made from the true tea plant Camelia sinensis. It is an infusion made from roasted barley, and it seems fairly universally accepted that this tea should and does contain gluten.

日本人へ、ご注意ください。麦茶は大麦由来なので、グルテンが入っています。セリアック病患者およびグルテン不耐症の人には危険です。ほとんどの外国人は麦茶のことが知らないので、この情報をグルテンフリーの友達に教えて下さい。外国人は茶だったら麦と関係ないと思っちゃうし、麦茶のボトルに英語で「Barley」が普通に書いていないので、危ないですね。よろしくお願いします。

Mugi cha is very common in Japan, especially in the summer when iced teas are favored over hot brews. It is not uncommon to find a Brita-esque pitcher of mugi cha in a Japanese refrigerator that is continually refilled and drunk throughout the day in lieu of water.

There is also a real danger of accidentally drinking mugi cha at Japanese restaurants, even if you know not to order it. This is because it may simply spontaneously appear at your table without you saying a word.

In general, Asians restaurants have a practice of serving tea as opposed to a glass of water when you are seated at your table. In my experience, this is usually going to be o-cha (green tea) in Japan, but you definitely cannot rule out mugi cha as a possibility.

Mugi cha is pronounced "moo" (like cows say) "ghee" (like the first part of "geese") "cha" (like cha-cha-cha, the dance). Mugi means "barley" and may be written using the kanji (Chinese character) 麦 or the hiragana (Japanese phonetic characters) むぎ. Cha means "tea" and is virtually always written with the kanji 茶（for your reference, the hiragana would be ちゃ). In short, you should be looking for either 麦茶 or むぎ茶. I really do recommend memorizing those words because you are not going to be able detect mugi cha by sight. It looks exactly like a lightly brewed black oolong or black tea.

The mugi cha is the fourth bottle from the left, directly to the right of a bottle of oolong tea.

You might have noticed in the above photo that although "Jasmine Tea" and "OOLONG CHA" are written in English, the word "barley" is nowhere to be found on the mugi cha bottle. This is not a peculiarity of the brand shown in the photo, but rather a general trend wherein more "foreign" teas like oolong or Jasmine will include the English name on the bottle, but traditional Japanese teas like matcha or mugi cha will not.

Sometimes you might be graced with an obvious warning sign that crosses the language barrier such as a picture of a barley stalk on the bottle, but it really is much more foolproof to memorize or write down the characters for reference. Good luck ~