Combining perfectly roasted white sesame seeds with  Rokujo barley from Kokufu-cho in Hida Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, Nabeshima Meicha has created a deliciously nutty and aromatic, caffeine free herbal tea.

A specialist in mugicha (barley) tea production, the century-old tea producer gently sand-roasts the grains to produce an aromatic flavor and amber color that has fast earned acclaim throughout Japan and the world as one of Nabeshima Meicha’s signature products.

Winters in Hida are intense, with the snow piling up and frigid cold. The Rokujo barley we use in our barley tea is sown from November through December, before the winter cold becomes more intense. The barley is allowed to slumber in the snow to develop richer glucose content. The result is a barley with smaller granules and excellent sweetness.

Sand-roasted barley

Barley tea is generally made from inferior quality, low-grade barley. Our Hida Barley Tea, by contrast, utilizes 100% grade AA barley, the highest grade, produced locally. Compared to firing tea in pans, we employ traditional sand-roasting, a more painstaking process. Slowly roasting the barley in drums with sand imparts a rich aroma and prevents it from being scorched. The rich aroma and bouquet you will experience are one of the foremost charms of Hida Barley Tea.

As traditional tea purveyors, we consider ourselves to be not in the business of merely selling tea, but producing safe and quality products and promoting the culture of tea and what makes it delicious.This barley tea represents our latest innovation.

Product Info

• Cultivar: Fiber Snow Barley
• Net weight: 30g (10 packets, 3g each). 
• Ingredients: Barley (grown in Hida, Gifu Prefecture), White sesame.
• Grower: Toshihiro Tanaka

Vendor Info

• Name: Nabeshima Meicha Co., Ltd.
• Business: Agricultural processing and other businesses.
• Employees: 4 employees, part of a group of companies run by the family totaling 3-4 dozen employees.
• Location: 12 Shimoichinomachi, Takayama-shi, Gifu Prefecture
• Established: 1908

A specialist purveyor of Deep-steamed Tea, bringing the charms of tea from Takayama to the world.

The Shimoichinomachi area in which Nabeshimameicha was founded is close to the traditional streetscape for which Takayama is famous. This is an area that thrived as a traditional merchant’s quarters. When the establishment was first founded, we piled our tea on traditional pull-carts and visited each client one by one. This commitment remains the same today, where we work closely with each of our customers and convey the traditional tea aesthetic. We take into account the unique aspects and strengths of the tea provided by farmers and tea wholesalers and develop our tea with care to meet the needs of wholesale vendors and downstream consumers. To that end, we consider it essential to meet face-to-face and align our approach. In recent years, we have been promoting the culture of Japanese tea in the United States and Europe, as well as actively selling our products online. No matter the target consumer or destination, we remain committed to our traditional way of considering what type of tea is best suited to the drinker, and in what contexts.