Tibetan butter tea

Tibetan butter tea

　　An indispensable food of the day. Cattle and sheep are an essential part of life on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the butter used to make butter tea is extracted from cow and sheep milk

　　The traditional method herders use to extract butter is as follows: first, heat the milk freshly squeezed from cattle or sheep, then pour it into a specially made large wooden barrel (locally called “xuedong,” which is specially used for butter extraction, about 4 feet high and about 1 foot in diameter), then use a special butter-making tool to vigorously churn the milk up and down hundreds of times, stirring until the milk separates into oil and water, with a layer of yellowish fat floating on top. At this point, this layer of fat can be scooped out and poured into a leather bag, and once cooled, it becomes butter. Nowadays, many places have gradually started using cream separators to replace manual butter extraction. Generally speaking, five to six pounds of butter can be extracted from every hundred pounds of milk

　　Butter has many uses, mainly being churned into butter tea to drink, but it can also be mixed into tsampa. During festivals, it is also used for frying pastries. Tibetans usually enjoy drinking butter tea on a daily basis

　　To make butter tea, first boil tea leaves or brick tea in water to make a strong concentrate, then pour the tea into a “dongmo” (butter tea churn), add butter and salt, and vigorously churn the mixture up and down dozens of times using a “jaluo” to blend the oil and tea together. Then pour it into a pot to heat, and it becomes the fragrant and delicious butter tea. (Lhasa)