Roasted corn
Roasted maize kernels brewed into a sweet golden drink, and one of the two or three things a Korean household is most likely to have in a jug in the fridge. It is frequently blended with roasted barley, and the blend is more common than either alone.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Zea mays
- Family
- Poaceae
- Part used
- Seed
- Origin
- Mesoamerica by origin; the drink is Korean and Chinese
- Drunk in
- Gangwon, Korea, Northern China
Character
Distinctly sweet and popcorn-like with no bitterness at all, and rounder than roasted barley. It is one of the easiest drinks in the catalogue to like on first contact.
Notes: popcorn, caramel, toast
History
Maize reached East Asia through Portuguese and Spanish trade in the sixteenth century and was grown widely in Korea’s mountainous provinces, where rice was difficult. The roasted drink follows the older barley-tea pattern rather than any Mesoamerican practice, and Gangwon province is its heartland.
How it is drunk
Served in Korean homes and restaurants in place of water, hot in winter and cold in summer, and drunk in parts of northern China as yumi cha. Corn silk is often included, which adds a distinct sweetness.
Production
Kernels are dried and roasted until deep gold and fragrant, and the roast is what makes the drink — under-roasted corn tastes of nothing much and over-roasted turns acrid. Blends with barley are sold as a standard product rather than as a compromise.
Preparation
Roasted grain infusion · Cold infusion
Herbal infusion (tisane)
2–4 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 5 min
Category-typical for roasted grain drinks rather than measured for this grain. Roasted material is already cooked, so the usual failure is under-dosing rather than over-steeping.
What gets confused
Most packaged oksusu-cha is a corn and barley blend and the proportions are rarely stated. Pure corn is sweeter and less toasty than the blend most people know.
Common mistakes
- Under-dosing. Roasted grain needs two or three times the weight a leaf infusion does.
Related botanicals
- Mugicha — Roasted grain drinks served in place of water across Korea and Japan, and usually blended together.
Comparisons
- Corn tea vs barley tea — The two roasted grain drinks of East Asian tables, and they are more often blended together than drunk apart. Corn is the sweeter and barley the more widespread.
- Corn tea vs Job’s tears — Two Korean roasted-seed drinks, one clear and sweet and one thick enough to be a light meal, and neither of them is what its English name suggests.
- Corn tea vs corn silk — Two drinks from one plant — Zea mays, native to Mexico and Guatemala — using entirely different parts and tasting nothing alike.
Guides
Evidence for this page
The botanical name, family and distribution above are checked against an external authority. Zea mays L. — GRIN-Global Taxonomy record— retrieved and read, not countersigned by a named human. That source covers naming and distribution only. Everything else on this page — history, culture, production, flavour, preparation and buying advice — is TeaHQ’s own synthesis with no external source behind it.
Brewing parameters here are typical practice for the category rather than measurements of this plant, and each set says so.
This page makes no safety claim. It describes what Roasted corn is, where it comes from and how it is prepared — not what it does to a person. The absence of a safety note here is not a statement that the plant is safe. How TeaHQ handles this.