Ochagai

This porridge is cooked in roasted or powdered green tea rather than water; unlike plain rice porridge, it carries the tea's flavor and finishes light and smooth, since the tea is said to keep it from turning sticky. Sweet potato is sometimes added depending on the season, turning it into a potato porridge, and it's also said to be good served chilled in summer. It's said to have taken root as a food custom mainly along the Ariake coast. In one hot-spring town it's said to be made with locally grown tea.

Water is boiled and roasted tea added to make a tea broth, into which washed rice is added and cooked. There's also a method using leftover rice with tea leaves in a bag simmered in, and sweet potato is sometimes added to bulk it out depending on the season. Watching the heat carefully so it doesn't boil over is said to be the key step. It's also described as a clever way to make use of tea leaves already brewed once. There's also a method of simmering leftover cold rice directly in hot water.

The dish is said to have grown out of a spirit of thrift toward rice. In merchant households with many employees, it's said to have been served for breakfast using the previous night's cold rice and tea leaves already brewed once. It can still be found today served at breakfast in some inns around the prefecture, and in tea-growing towns it's said to be made with locally grown tea. It's said to have been made at home less often as the economy grew.