Distinctive Tibetan Drinks

For westerners, coffee, juice and wine made from grape are the common drinks; for Chinese, green/black tea and wine made from wheat, rice, corn, broomcorn and soybean are the common drink; but Tibetans enjoy their distinctive Tibetan drinks, such as butter tea, yak milk and barley wine. If you travel to Tibet, just have of taste of the different Tibetan drinks.

 

Butter Tea

 

Buttered tea is the daily drink for Tibetan people just like coffee for westerners. It is said that the relationship between Tibetan tea and Tibetan people are like that between fish and water.

 

In fact, there are different kinds of Tibetan tea, butter tea, sweet tea and pure tea. But butter tea is the most popular tea in Tibet. Butter tea is a beverage in Tibet with abundant nourishment. At the fastigium of the world, no matter you are sharp-set or foredone, as soon as you drink a cup of the Tibetan butter tea, you will get back power all over and become energetic in the turn of a hand. In winter, after you dinked the butter tea, you will feel warm from heat to foot.

 

Some people even said, the Tibetan butter tea can cure the ill body. Though it is exaggerate, it embodies the wonderful function of the tea. If you make a Lhasa tour, you can find many tea houses offering butter tea along the streets of Lhasa. A cup of butter tea only costs 0.6 Yuan. It is very cheap.

 

Yak Milk

 

If you travel to Tibet, you will find long-haired bovine throughout Tibet. There are both wild and domesticated yaks in Tibet. Of course, the yak milk is from the domesticated yaks.

 

Domesticated yaks have been kept for thousands of years, primarily for their milk, fibre and meat, and as beasts of burden. Their dried dropping is important fuel, used all over Tibet, and is often the only fuel available on the high treeless Tibetan Plateau. As one of the most important products in Tibet, milk products are famous for fresh. The most popular milk products are yogurt and milk sediments. The best time to enjoy Tibetan yogurt is to make a Tibet tour during annual Shoton Festival which will fall on Aug. 26, 2013.  

 

Beside, milk is always processed into a cheese called chhurpi in Tibetan. Butter made of Yak's milk is an ingredient of the butter tea that Tibetans consume in large quantities, and is also used in lamps and made into butter sculptures used in religious festivities.

 

Barley Wine

 

Highland barley is the main crop on the Tibetan plateau. Wine made from barley is called barley wine or Chang in Tibetan language.

 

Barley wine is brewaged by zymolytic highland barley. The barley wine with low degree is popular among Tibetan people, the young and the old, the female and the male. It is a kind of necessary drink at festivals, marriage feats and other important occasions. Before festivals, Tibetan people will brewage plentiful of barley wine.

 

The barley wine is as well a nice product for entertaining guests. If you travel to Tibet and pay a visit to Tibetan family, you will surely be treated with barley wine.