Tibetan Food – Drinks

Various drinks are necessary part of making up nutritious Tibetan food. Generally speaking, the main drinks of Tibetan include butter tea, plain tea, sweet tea, milk, barley wine and so on.

Tibetan Food – Butter Tea

Among these drinks, the butter tea and plain tea often have with staple Tibetan food – tsamba. They are also regarded as daily drinks to drink. The butter tea and sweet tea separately made up of ghee, milk or milk power, tea, salt and white sugar. This shows that butter tea and sweet tea are kind of nutritious food with the function of tea. From the point of nutriology, the ghee can complement calories and Vitamin A, while the sweet tea can complement protein and some other nutriments.

Tibetan Food – Barley Wine

The barley wine is a kind of wine which made up from barley. In Tibet, almost everyone will dink this wine. Tibetans will brew large amount of barley wine before festivals. From March to August, almost in every traditional or non-traditional festival, Tibetans will come to grassland with three or five friends and relatives with sweet and intoxicating barley wine, put up colorful tent, to drink the barley wine, while singing and dancing. It fully shows the charm of Tibetan wine culture.

Tibetan Food – Sweet Tea

Except butter tea and barley wine, the sweet tea is necessary Tibetan food. The numbers of sweet tea house in Lhasa must be the most in the world. The customers of sweet tea houses almost are men. We can say that the sweet tea houses are the world of men. The sweet tea houses are also the "information center" and important social intercourse base of men.

To sum up, all generations of Tibetan live on snow covered plateau. They formed their distinctive diet features, which with rich nationality features, in the face of bad natural environment. With the improvement of scientific and cultural level in Tibet and the deepening of reform and opening up, Tibet will develop toward more prosperous, and the living standard of Tibetans will be improved. The diet foods in most districts will develop toward diversification to keep the traditional cultural features of Tibetan food, to better promote Tibetans in good health.