Earlier this year I went to Makan2 Cafe in Vic Park where I tried ice barley tea with lemon. Even though I'm sure they put a truck load of sugar in the drink, it was super refreshing and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Since then, I've had it on my list of things to recreate at home.
I finally managed to buy some barley grain so that I could make my own barley tea. I did some Googling and found a recipe from La Fugi Mama which also gave some background into the origins of barley tea. I learnt that barley tea originates from Japan and is called mugicha (pronounced "moo-gee-cha").
Homemade barley tea is very simple to make. Aside from actually drinking the iced barley tea, my second favourite part of making this was toasting the barley grains. You will know once they are ready because of the wonderful aroma that will fill your kitchen. It smells like freshly baked bread. Seriously, Heaven must smell like this :P
Once my tea had been chilled, I decided not to add any sugar but just to enjoy it as it is with all the flavour of those beautiful toasted barley grains. So refreshing and so good for you!
Homemade Mugicha (Japanese Roasted Barley Tea)
Makes 8 cups
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup uncooked pearl barley
- 8 cups water
Directions
- Put the barley in a large dry skillet and toast over medium heat
for about 10 minutes, stirring the grains and shaking the skillet
occasionally so that they toast evenly, until the grains have turned a
dark rich brown color. Remove from the heat and pour out into a bowl or
a paper towel to cool.
- Bring the water to a boil in a pot, add the cooled toasted barley,
and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and let
the barley continue to steep as the mugicha cools, for about 5 minutes.
- Strain out the barley, pour the mugicha into a pitcher and chill.
I mentioned in a post that I had bought a few different blends of tea from Liquorice Gormet Foods in Joondalup. I had one more left to try and today I decided to make it into an ice tea rather than serve it hot. The weather is warming up over here in Perth and so I thought this would be something nice to cool me down. I also went out and bought some retro jar shaped glass mugs to serve my tea in :)
I cut up some apple and pineapple and added it to my iced green guava and pomegranate tea. I also added 1/2 teaspoon of sweetener. It was very refreshing. It was nice and fruity. There was a bit of summer with each sip.
Another exciting new thing for me today was assisting my young client on an outing to the shops with him using his walking frame. The lovely boy that I work with normally will go out in his wheelchair because he usually can't walk long distances on his two feet, but he is always developing and growing stronger and today we did a quick trip to the shops with him getting around in his walker. I was so proud to see him walking through the shops. We stayed close to him, but even so, he looked so independent. He was smiling so much and having a great time. I hope to see more development, and I hope that all kids are getting the opportunity to acheive their full potential.
