Tibetans are addicted to butter tea, and there is a folk love story that narrates the origin of butter tea. Legend has it that there were two tribes in the Tibetan area who had a fight and had a grudge. Mei Meicuo, the daughter of the chiefdom of the tribe, fell in love with Wendun Ba, the son of the chiefdom of the Angry Tribe, in labor. However, due to the grievances forged in the history of the two tribes, the chiefdom of the tribe sent someone to kill Wendun Ba. When a cremation ceremony was held for Wendun Ba, Mei Meicuo jumped into the sea of fire to die. After the death of the two sides, Meimeicuo went to the mainland to become tea leaves on the tea tree, and Wentonpa to Qiangtang to become salt in the salt lake. Whenever Tibetans played butter tea, tea and salt met again. This is a story triggered by the tea custom, with strong artistic appeal.

GheeHerdsmen's traditional method of refining ghee is to heat the milk squeezed from cattle and sheep and pour it into a special large wooden barrel (this barrel is called "Xuedong" locally and is specially used to refine ghee, with a height of about 4 feet and a diameter of about l feet), then use a special ghee appliance to beat the milk hard up and down, hundreds of times back and forth, stirring the water of the milk oil.

Production method:

First, heat the milk, then pour it into a large wooden barrel called "Xue Dong" (4 feet high and about L feet in diameter) and beat it up and down vigorously.

Hundreds of times back and forth, stirring the oil and water to separate, floating a layer of lake yellow fat, scooping it up, pouring it into the skin pocket, cooling it into ghee.

When making butter tea, first boil the tea or brick tea with water for a long time into a thick juice. Then pour the tea into the butter tea bucket.

Then add ghee and salt, and pump the tea bucket up and down for dozens of times to stir the camellia to blend, then pour it into the pot and heat it to become fragrant and delicious ghee tea.

Butter tea has various preparation methods, which are usually boiled first and then boiled, I .e. cold water is added to a teapot or pot, a proper amount of brick tea or tuocha is added, covered and boiled, and then slowly boiled with a small fire until the tea is dark brown and the entrance is not bitter. Put a little salt in this boiled strong tea to make salty tea. For example, add another piece of ghee to a tea bowl to dissolve it in the tea. It is the easiest tea. However, a more orthodox method is to filter out the boiled strong tea and pour it into a buttered tea barrel specially used for buttered tea (this is a common and necessary living tool in Tibetan people's homes, consisting of a barrel and a stirrer. The barrel is surrounded by wooden boards with the same upper and lower diameters. The outer hoop is made of copper skin, and the upper and lower ends are made of copper as lace, which is exquisite and generous.

The agitator is composed of a wooden handle slightly higher than the barrel on a round wooden board smaller than the simple mouth. There are four small holes with a diameter of about 4cm on the round wooden board. When stirring, liquid and gas can flow up and down. Since the 21st century, in cities and other qualified Tibetan homes, more electric mixers have been used, which is convenient, fast, clean and hygienic, and butter has been added.

Efficacy

Butter tea is a daily essential drink for Tibetan people. It is essential for life on the Tibetan plateau. First, it can cure altitude sickness, second, it can prevent lips from bursting due to dry weather, and third, it can play a good role in keeping out the cold. When it is cold, it can dispel cold, when eating meat, it can be greasy, when hungry, it can relieve fatigue when sleepy, and when sleepy, it can clear its head. Tea contains vitamins, which can reduce the damage caused by the lack of vegetables in the plateau. The color of butter tea is similar to that of strong cocoa tea. After drinking a mouthful of tea, the tea aroma is very strong, and the milk aroma is tangy. There is a special aftertaste.

Because brick tea contains a lot of tannic acid, it stimulates gastrointestinal peristalsis and speeds up digestion. It is easy to be hungry if you drink it alone. You must add ghee or milk. Butter tea has extremely high calories, is fragrant and delicious. A sip of it makes you feel refreshed. There is a strong milk flavor, but it is a good thing to supplement physical strength.

More than a thousand years ago, Tibetan medical expert Yutuo Yundan Gongbu discussed the nutritional effect of ghee on the human body in his book "Four Medical Classics". "Fresh ghee is cool and can strengthen muscles, can produce Ze Li and remove red heat", that is to say, fresh ghee moistens qi and blood, is energetic, makes the skin not crack, and can also treat mucus and febrile diseases. It is believed that ghee can "increase the heat of the puzzle", "a thousand kinds of utility can be called top grade", "can promote people's physical strength and prolong life", "people rely on oil in their daily diet, and the internal organs can be clean by heating the body. The physique is to replenish the strength and appearance, and the five senses are strong and long-lived for a hundred years". Tibetan medicine believes that drinking more butter tea in an alpine and anoxic environment can enhance physical fitness, increase semen, moisturize the stomach, and warm the spleen, moisturize the complexion and be energetic. Butter tea can produce high calories and can keep out the cold after drinking. It is a drink very suitable for alpine regions.

The tea juice in butter tea is very strong, which has the functions of promoting body fluid and quenching thirst, refreshing, preventing arteriosclerosis, anti-aging and anti-cancer. The aromatic substances in tea can also dissolve fat and help digestion, especially Tibetans living in pastoral areas on the Tibetan plateau, who lack fresh vegetables and fruits, and the staple food is beef and mutton. Due to lack of oxygen, the urine output of people in alpine areas is twice as much as that of people in plain areas. Therefore, they can only rely on drinking tea to maintain the balance of water in the body and normal metabolism, and drinking tea can supplement the lack of vitamins. Beef and mutton are acidic foods. After being digested by the human body, they will produce a certain amount of hydrogen ions. It will make the human blood acidic and cause symptoms such as hyperacidity, constipation, and fatigue. After drinking a lot of tea, it can produce a certain amount of hydroxide in the human body. Ion, which can maintain the balance of acid and alkali in the human body. Therefore, the Tibetan people will ghee and tea drink, for their own to provide a simple and effective disease prevention and health care law.