Sunday, January 30, 2005

Wuxu Hai (伍须海) - Making butter tea


suyoucha2, originally uploaded by mutikonka1.

On the shores of Wuxu Lake near Jiulong I spent an afternoon sitting in the homestead of these Tibetan farmers, sheltering from the wind and rain squalls. Here my host is making butter tea by the traditional method: mixing yak milk and hot water in a kind of elongated wooden bucket with a plunger. That rhythmic sucking sound is the background music of Tibetan household life.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Last week when I was in Brisbane I went to a Tibetan restaurant called Himalayan. We saw 'butter tea' in the menu list and I told one of my friends how Tibetans drink butter tea. He asked if they put butter in their tea just because food is rare in Tibet. I think it is because to be able to resist the cold weather. I've never been to Tibet.

mutikonka said...

I think they drink it because it's a ready source of energy on the highlands.