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 ~

Consumer Labeling for Gluten in Japan

Gluten-free labeling essentially does not exist in Japan. Once in a blue moon, you may be wandering in a random Tokyo supermarket and happen upon a single package of imported rice pasta that says グルテンフリー (guruten furii, i.e. gluten-free). If you're like me, you will instantly pounce on the package and hold it to the sky like Simba, your eyes tearfully glazing over with joy. The other 364 days of the year, you will not encounter gluten-free labeling in the supermarket. There are a couple Japanese gluten-free activists that have started little personal shops in the far reaches of the city, and that will be the subject of a future post, but personally their existence has so far not impacted my life here very much.

As an aside, I cannot assure you that those rare instances of gluten-free labeling actually mean anything. The FDA has only recently defined American gluten-free labels to be officially <20 ppm and require such testing by law in order to use the label. To my knowledge, there is no such legislation in existence in Japan.

Do they label wheat? Yes and no. Yes, the government encourages food labeling for common allergens/irritants such as wheat, milk, egg, shrimp, and meats. No, it is not as helpful as it sounds. The problem with the system is that almost everything is labeled as containing wheat. This is due to a few key issues (two of these issues are actual problems with the food, the latter two might be better classified as attitude problems):

1. Wheat flour as a thickener is ubiquitous. It does not seem to have occurred to most companies yet to show mercy and just use potato starch, rice flower, etc.
2. Soy sauce, even if only trace amounts, is added to essentially every non-beverage liquid sold (sauces, dressings, etc). I have a theory that instead of adding salt, they add high-sodium soy sauce instead. Consider how much of your food contains salt, and imagine all of that salt contained gluten. That is Japan.
3. Companies are presumably liable if their food contains wheat but is not labeled as such. However, the reverse scenario is different: there is no risk for the company if they use a wheat label despite there actually being no wheat. Thus, there seems to be a trend for some companies, especially chain restaurants, to simply create their allergy list so that it literally has a dot next to wheat in every. single. column. I am not joking. It is easier than actually evaluating each item, contacting manufacturers, etc.
4. Some companies do not distinguish between the "ingredients contain wheat" and the "processed in a facility that also processes wheat" labels. They lump it all under something vague, like just the wheat symbol with a dot next to it. This is frustrating, because I suspect that something like 99% of the facilities here process wheat-containing products. Thus, "this item contains wheat" tends to be written on tons of products that actually probably do not contain wheat or gluten in any detectable amount. Many of us would be willing to risk the facility contamination, but we have no way of knowing if there's actually several grams of wheat flour hidden somewhere in the ingredients list or just the possibility of facility-related trace contamination. This is a really, really important distinction.

Do they label barley or rye? No. I have never, ever seen anything like "product contains barley" on a package. I have never seen these items on a restaurant's allergy listings. I am not sure most Japanese people even know what they are. This might be a good thing because I think it indicates that it is fairly rare in Japan to load up a meal with barley and rye products. I usually only see the symbols for those ingredients in the form of malt additives, alcohols, and vinegars. However, contamination is still a huge issue. For example, some miso soups are for some reason processed with large amounts of barley or wheat. The wheat contamination will be labeled, but the barley contamination will not. I could try to track down the manufacturer every time I drink miso soup, but I have found it simpler to just avoid miso altogether. Avoiding miso and soy sauce in Japan is an insane life, just FYI.

More on all this later! Bye for now ~