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Answerman - Do Japanese People Really Only Drink Green Tea?

I love bottled Ito En teas, they're nice and refreshing and so much better for you than soft drinks. ...Gotta be careful of all that caffeine, though.

In retrospect I probably should've mentioned barley tea, but as others have stated, it's not really tea.

Just as an FYI while green tea does contain almost as much caffeine as coffee it does not hit your body as quickly as coffee. I forget the exact science behind it (can't find the bookmarked article from years ago) but the caffeine from green tea is more slow to be released into the body where as coffee hits you all at once basically.

Many Westerners who aren't used to green tea accuse it of tasting like a freshly mowed lawn.

Cold Barley Tea (aka "mugi cha") is actually often the drink of choice in the summer, and as Brand noted is often served (or otherwise available for free, aka from a dispenser) in many smaller restaurants. If anything, I'd say the US is more "limited" in its tea drinking since the most prevalent form is (unnamed) "iced tea".

I'm curious if kombucha is popular in Japan at all. That's kind of the only "tea" like drink that I consume, and it has been gaining in popularity in the US just massively over the last 5 years(I was into before everyone else. ) . Great stuff, but certainly not for everyone.

I'm a bit of a tea snob (not super hardcore though). If you are looking for good quality tea in a normal supermarket than Twinings is probably the best. If you live near a Wegmans then they have actually a pretty good line up for loose leaf tea for sale. I still like a lot of my teas with some sweetener. I'll use a packet of Stevia in a lot of black teas. I'd try something like a Jasmine or an Earl Grey tea because they will have a bit of a fruity/flowery taste which would help if you think tea is bitter.

It really isn't a silly question. Put the shoe on the other foot and ask "Do people in English North America really only eat one kind of banana?" and the answer is a resounding "Yes!".

I know a couple originally from Sri Lanka; I was recently talking to the husband, who's been in Canada less than a year, about food over here and one of the things he brought up was how there's only one kind of banana at the regular grocery stores. You have to go to Asian or specialty stores to find any other kinds whereas back home there are many kinds widely available.

Cold barley tea is definitely a thing; you see it in anime series quite a bit. I've never tried it. I mostly drank things like Pocari Sweat, C.C. Lemon, and my favorite, THE GREEN MELON CREAM SODA.
Which is served at every KFC. I really wanted to bring a 2-liter bottle home but they told me the supermarkets don't carry it during February; only in the summer.

That stuff's amazing though. They also have a fruit-flavored drink called "Qoo" and that's also good.

There are at least three major types of iced tea in the United States, and their popularity varies by which part of the country you're in. Granted, the main difference is the sugar content in the iced tea. Where you are in Texas, I believe your iced tea is most commonly sweet tea, whereas here on the west coast, something simply called "iced tea" with no other description is completely unsweetened (even if it's fruit-flavored), and it seems to appliy to our immediate neighbors to the east. And when you go to the southeast, it becomes "sweet sweet tea" or "extra-sweet tea," which some people say is akin to drinking syrup, but it has its dedicated supporters.

relyat08 wrote:

I'm curious if kombucha is popular in Japan at all. That's kind of the only "tea" like drink that I consume, and it has been gaining in popularity in the US just massively over the last 5 years(I was into before everyone else. ) . Great stuff, but certainly not for everyone.

I thought kombucha is Korean in origin.