Traditions Butter Tea and Tsampa Tibetans string small cubes of cheese, then hang and dry them. These women in Dharamsala, India, sell cheese as part of their small business. Tsampa is roasted barley ground into flour. Tibetans mix butter tea with tsampa to make an instant meal.
Butter tea is yak butter and salted black tea churned together, and resembles broth.
May you have long life, may the house be filled with grain, May you have the good fortune to make use of this abundance. Forty years in exile in India have changed Tibetan fare considerably. The hotter, humid climate demands lighter foods and has added more vegetables to Tibetans' diets. Indian dishes such as curry, lentils, rice, and chapati bread have been adopted by Tibetans. Also, families from distant regions of Tibet are now neighbors in refugee settlements and are exposed to one another's different cooking traditions.