Sweet tea and buttered tea are the main component of Tibetan tea culture. Tibettour.com offers some information of sweet tea for your better understanding of Tibetan drinks.
Milky tea is one of the traditional teas in Tibet region. It was called sweet tea at local place. It is a good thing for treating guests. In fact the milky teas have two kinds. One is put in milk or milk and salt into the boiled tea. The other one is much more popular which will additionally put sugar in. So people call the latter one sweet tea.
It is said that it has been more than one hundred years since sweet tea being introduced to tibet. The first time Tibetan people drank sweet tea should date back to the time when doing trade business among Tibet, Nepal and India. After that, Tibetan gentry fell in love with this kind of drink. Some noble families even get in cooks from Nepal and India. Those cooks not only make sweet tea, they also make other western food. Thus sweet tea soon entered into noble families and became the drink for treating guests. Until the 1920s, sweet tea house occurred in the street of Lhasa. Only those noblemen, businessmen and wealthy men were qualified to enter into the sweet tea house and have enjoyed the tea.
Women are more professional than men in making sweet tea. Almost every woman in tibet can do sweet tea. Before the middle 1980s, teahouses were prohibited to women. If any women went to the sweet tea house, it will spread to all over the city and people will think this woman was flighty. Although various tea houses are scattered in tibet, the sweet tea houses are the most popular. Now many people, the old, the young, the man, the woman who come to pilgrimage will take a rest in the sweet tea house and eat some steamed bread brought form home or other food. Sweet tea house also have become a place for exchanging news for Tibetan people.