Tibetan buttered tea culture

In Tibet, Tibetans mainly drink buttered tea, sweet tea and light tea. The yak buttered tea quickly circulating during the ancient Tubo Kingdom has become a favorite drink in Tibet.

This is the method of making buttered tea. First brick tea produced in Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces is boiled into a concentrated tea. The tea leaves are then filtered out and set aside. To make the butter tea you take the right amount of tea plus a certain percentage of water and salt, which you then pour into a barrel. Then you add in the butter, which you churn into the tea up and down repeatedly to mix the ingredients into delicious buttered tea.

With social progress and the improvement of living standards, greater amounts of power and electricity are now available to the plateau people. Many people have started to use an electric mixer to beat the buttered tea, so certain traditions of this practice have become mechanized in modern times.

Buttered tea is high in calories and therefore energizing. The drink helps in resisting the cold and is therefore very suitable for the alpine regions. Buttered tea is strong in taste and aroma, yet has a very refreshing effect.

The tea also helps dissolve fat and aids digestion. Especially for herdsmen living in the pastoral area of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, their diets lack fresh fruits and vegetables. Food stables are instead beef and mutton. To maintain their body's water balance, they drink tea to sustain a normal metabolism since they lack vitamin supplements.

Tibetans cannot go one day without drinking the tea. Some families with conditions will drink only the buttered tea in the morning and drink light tea in the afternoon. Tibetans pay special attention to how they drink tea, which must be sipped slowly. To drink the tea loudly suggests you lack cultivation and manners.