Butter Tea (Po Cha)

Butter tea is the everyday drink of the Tibetan people, made from yak butter, brick or pu'er tea and salt, churned together in a long wooden tube until the liquid turns pale gold, rich with dairy fragrance, warmly savoury, found on nearly every table in Shangri-La.

Butter tea grew from the demands of the plateau: in the cold, thin air of the highland, the fat and the tea's alkaloids drive out cold, cut grease, stave off hunger and ease fatigue, while the tea-horse trade routes carried inland tea ceaselessly into Tibetan lands, fixing butter tea as a way of life passed down for generations.

When guests arrive, a host first offers a bowl of hot butter tea, kept topped up as it is drunk; the woman of the house works a long wooden churn to blend butter and tea anew, and the drink is taken alongside tsampa—a warm thread running through welcome, work and festival alike.

The churning of butter and tea in the wooden tube, the warm salty richness of the cup, and the way it is always paired with tsampa are what set butter tea apart from any other brew.