Guangming Sweet Tea House
Batch 1Guangming Sweet Tea House, near Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, is one of the city's best-known old-style sweet-tea houses, beloved for decades by local Tibetans, pilgrims and monks; the exact founding date is no longer recorded.
It is celebrated for its affordable Indian-style sweet tea (Böja), with a perpetually full house that offers a window onto Lhasa's everyday café culture and was listed as a must-visit in several travel magazines.
Böja sweet tea is brewed by simmering black tea with milk and sugar until it turns a rich orange-red, fragrant with dairy and sweet on the palate—quite different from the salty butter tea—reflecting the influence of Nepali and Indian border trade on Lhasa's drink culture.
It continues to operate as a representative Lhasa tea house and local cultural institution, not formally listed among China's Time-Honored Brands but enjoying wide renown in the city.