Tsampa (Roasted Highland-Barley Flour)

Tsampa is the traditional Tibetan staple, its name in Tibetan simply meaning "parched flour." Highland barley—or sometimes peas—is sun-dried, roasted and ground to a fine powder, then mixed with butter or salt tea and shaped by hand into small balls, the everyday food of Shangri-La's Tibetan households at every meal.

Tsampa grows from the high-plateau farming tradition of the Tibetan people and has been carried in Diqing alongside barley cultivation for over a thousand years. Cold-hardy barley thrives at altitude; roasting and grinding it keeps well and delivers quick energy in the bitter cold, making it the heart of Tibetan food culture.

In a Tibetan home one pours butter tea into a bowl, adds tsampa flour and stirs it steadily in one direction with the fingers, kneading until the moisture is just right, then shapes it into small balls to eat; dried cheese curd or sugar may be folded in, and it is always taken alongside butter tea.

The soul of tsampa lies in the meeting of roasted highland barley and rich butter tea; the hand-kneaded way of eating and its warm, filling texture mark it apart from any other staple.