Tsampa with butter tea

Tsampa with butter tea

　　Tsampa with butter tea is one of the traditional staple foods of Tibetan herders. "Tsampa" is the Tibetan transliteration for roasted barley flour. It is an everyday essential food for the Tibetan people. When visiting a Tibetan family, the host will surely serve you with both hands fragrant butter tea and roasted barley flour. Golden butter and creamy-yellow "churu" (casein curd), along with sugar, are layered abundantly on the table. Butter is the cream extracted from milk, and tsampa is made by roasting highland barley and then grinding it into powder with a hand mill.

　　To eat tsampa with butter tea, first pour a small amount of butter tea into a bowl, then add butter, roasted barley flour, churu, and sugar. Mix them evenly with your fingers in the bowl and form small balls to eat. It has the fragrance of butter, the tangy crispness of churu, and the sweetness of sugar. It is highly nutritious, calorie-dense, and helps to ward off hunger and cold.

　　Because tsampa is simple to eat and easy to carry, it is very suitable for the nomadic lifestyle. When herders go on long trips, they often hang a tsampa bag around their waists. When hungry, they just grab a handful of tsampa to eat. Sometimes, they take out a wooden bowl, put some tsampa in it, pour in a bit of butter tea, add some salt, stir it a few times, and eat it right away. Other times, they eat tsampa while drinking butter tea. Occasionally, they pour tsampa into a leather bag called a "tanggu", add butter tea, hold the mouth of the bag with one hand, and knead it through the bag with the other. Soon, the fragrant tsampa is ready to eat.

　　Source: Xining Municipal People's Government