want Tibetan tea!!!

I really don´t want to ruin your nostalgic affection, but most tibetans use ceramics or porcellain cups these days - as well as electric blenders. Concerning the yak butter did you try: yakbutter24.com or vile-r-us.com ? Seriously, I could ask one of my friends in Nepal or Tibet to ship you a decent lump, blue veins and all, ...

Karsten

ahh, the downside to information and the Internet. Just about any idea or project can be researched, purchased, and fulfilled... no matter how crazy. I'd say your best bet is to take a trip to this part of the world, try it once, and call it a day. You'll at least have the trip to a beautiful part of this Earth to savor for the rest of your days, not so much the butter tea.

Now, if you come away with a newfound addiction... by all means go hog- wild and gather all the accoutrements and ingredients to relive the "splendor" heck, maybe even raise a Yak (preferably a female one for the milking, males may make the butter tea slightly different)

Understandably the trip is more costly, but if it's something you're into the delay, research, and journey would be well worth it and far surpass a wooden bowl, some rancid butter FedExed from lord knows where, and a most assured failure.

Just my 2 pence, but truly my warmest regards in this endeavor,

- Dominic

I researched it, and thought that the best way to go about it is to raise your own yak (male) along with with 9 xaks (female). They would be unhappy in a smaller herd. They need a relatively cool location, perhap a Canadian grazing ground would do. I imagine the butter production is similar to that of other bovines. Toci

I'd say your best bet is to take a trip to this part of the

Just in case, these days you can find some really nice greens and oolongs in Lhasa and elsewhere. Just in case ...

If I were you I´d hurry up and go there before it´s 100% chinese. Each time I visited Tibet it was less "tibetan" than before. The last time I found Lhasa to be one of the most depressing places I care to remember, watching all those beautiful old tibetan quarters disappear one by one and getting replaced by ohh-soo-white prefab chinese standard architecture isn´t something I enjoy too much. Not to mention the catastrophic allover impact on tibetans and their culture the chinese invasion has produced so far and I´m not even one of those "free tibet" sorta guys.

Karsten [Ceylon home blend in tazza]

Wow, nice photo! very cool. Yes, sadly it is probably on a downswing that may never be recovered from (even with all of the free Tibet guys/ gals/college students) That was kind of why I made the suggestion I did, because if it is a particular fascination or interest to the OP his chances are dwindling to actually experience it rather than just a semi-approximation from his kitchen. A complete loss of a culture is a major thing, and once they go, they're gone for good only to be hung on to in small isolated pockets that are a shell of their former glory. Not to be doom and gloom, but I don;t think all the protests and good intentions in the world are going to help with this one.

- Dominic

I don't know whether this will help or not: we have friends who have a Tibetan restaurant here in the Bay area. The husband cooks for His Holiness when he comes this way. My friend uses Hawaiian salt in the tea and plain old organic UNsalted butter since he's unable to get yak butter, and says that most Tibetans he knows (HHDL included) prefer it. In my visits to Dharmasala, I was given the option and chose cow butter since I agree with Karsten, yak butter is pretty vile stuff. Shen

Ah well, the pic would have shown an incredibly nice area if ... if it had been shot a few years earlier. It would show

- a lovely lake [has been dried up and replaced with tarmac]

- old colourful tibetan houses [replaced by all those white prefab buildings that you can see now]

- hoards of tibetans enjoying their picnics.

Some few locals and myself liked it much better back then, YMMV.

Back in the 30s Alexandra David-Neel described how she could make out the mighty potala from tens of miles away. Nowadays pretty much the only way to see it is to stand right in front of it, just follow the giant "Nescafe" billboards. Nestlé sure missed their chance to introduce 3-in-1 instant yak butter tea. Make your day with that taste. Back to real tea.

Karsten [Ceylon home blend in tazza]

Rosewood tea bowls -

Shen

You can't just buy commercial yak butter off the shelf. And even if you could, you'd never know if it were properly rancid.

FIRST of all, you need to make your own butter using only fresh yak milk and a genuine yak butter churn. And that means having your own personal yak. Think of the benefits of having a yak in the yard. You'll never need to mow the lawn again, and also it will prevent burglars from entering your properly. It might even prevent postmen and meter readers from entering your properly.

THEN once you have the correctly rancid yak butter (measured for rancidity ONLY with a calibrated rancidometer), then you need the right tea. And that is special Nepalese green tea from the Eight Obscure Tea Mountains. No other tea will do.

THEN, you must have these blended together carefully only by properly chosen young and nubile Nepalese girls, imported at great expense from the mountains of Nepal.

Now, once you have done this, climb into a walk-in freezer and stay there for about a week, in order to get in the correct mental environment to appreciate it. Light a fire on your sterno burner and enjoy a cup right there. I promise it will be worth the trouble.

--scott

Even in Darjeeling, which has a sizeable community of tibetans, Yak or dzo[mo] butter is hard to come by these days. In the meantime most "northern people" I know prefer cow butter instead, still sold as huge lumps. Back in my happy years in the central Himalayas, in areas like Mustang or the Langtang range, you didn´t need a watch to tell it´s teatime. The thin mountain air would transfer the wonderful aroma of authentic YBT over respectable distances, you just had to follow your nose [in my case the opposite direction]. However, if anyone should run into fresh tsampa [roasted barley, finely ground], by all means, give it a try. I really don´t wanna be without it this delicious energy powder. Again back to tea.

Karsten

Just to be there would make my day, but I did see those white uniform buildings and thought the same thing. I just recently read Seven Years in Tibet and the scenes he paints from his time there match exactly with your account of the pre-Nestle days. It's just sad when something with that kind of history is decimated. I find it funny that here in the U.S. places seem old when they say Est. 1905, and in China there are pickle stores that have been in constant business for over 500... that's old. Truly a shame, but I'd still love to stand atop the potala.

Dominic, we talked about this and your situation [job, house, ...] a good while ago. I don´t remember if I told you, but "it" was stuck in a similar situation, own company, working my a.. off until I overdid it, got seriously ill, made a decision, gave up my funny company, ordered a moving truck and found myself and my trusty backpack on Munich Airport only 7 days later, waiting for my flight to Kathmandu. I´ve been there before a couple times but this time I didn´t have a return ticket, just a one-way ticket into the most wonderful time I´ve ever had. [snip] Obviously there have been plans to blow up the potala, but thx to increasing numbers of tourists and their $$ the chinese government finally gave up on this insane idea. That wouldn´t however keep them from installing a discotheque on the rooftop one day, or a burger joint on the ground floor or whatever else comes to their wicked minds. In China the clocks tick pretty fast, I´ve seen things I still can´t believe to this day. If you want to go > go - the sooner the better.

PS: I´m moving this weekend, down to oompharia aka bavaria, last station in Germania before returning to some real mountains. Time to continue packing, got around 30 pounds of tea in one of the boxes, hopefully some folks down there drink something else than beer.

Karsten

If you want it > do it. Nuff said.

Karsten

One more, can´t resist, hehe ... One of my favorite stores is located in a small side alley between Tahiti Thole and Asan Thole in Kathmandu/Nepal. The family who owns it have been selling "dhup" [incense] and all kinds of herbs for more than 500 years from that hole-in-the-wall place. When that himalayan salt thing started some years ago, you could get real tibetan salt, from the changtang salt lakes from those guys - not the indian or pakistani stuff. It´s the salt has been transported by caravans on the old way from the Changtang lakes, through Upper Mustang, down the Kali Gandaki for ages. Simply wonderful stuff.

That family´s speciality however are their dhups, special incense for all kinds of religious ceremonies, especially one very special type: bokshi [witch] dhup - for "very special" ceremonies. The ingredient that makes it so special is ...... human flesh, no joke here. Of course it´s forbidden and all this, and they don´t have the real stuff on display but if you´re a nice fella and come by special recommendation ... They get those shrivelled pieces of flesh from the burning ghats at the river, all the more or less charred stuff the sweepwallahs deliberately overlook for a little baksheesh.

Anybody want some ???

Karsten

Actually, I switched jobs recently (a big move for me) to allow me to have the extra freedom finally. My advice to the OP was mainly because I spent too many years being stuck in a situation that kept me from those great experiences. Unfortunately I'm still in a fairly high position which has its demands, but I also have three vacations planned for the next year (well one is a honeymoon :). Kauai, Jamaica, and the other is still up for debate. China, Japan, England/Ireland, Norway, Italy, and Bhutan are the list we have now. We are able to hit two a year during the Summer months now and about 4 years or so before any rugrats... so I'm in a pretty good position finally. And I'm starting to stop and smell the roses.

I still couldn't drop it all at the moment, and I surely envy those who can, but the new situation will allow me a lot of time to enjoy life with the added benefit of an early retirement and enough money to travel and forget work for the rest of my days. If I make any more moves it will be to get my teaching certificate to allow us both to have the entire summer off for travel, but at least now no matter how it goes we can get plenty of places and goals in. I'm not complaining since I grew up with lower means, and I've managed to pull through a lot of adversity to be where I am... and I'm nowhere near stopping :) There are many who don't ever get the chance.

I always wish you the best, and I may still be a slightly caged spirit... but I'm finding the ways to slip out of my cage. It's a compromise, sure, but now it's a 75/25 split for the good instead of the opposite that I had.

- Dominic

Hmmm...I thought Yunnan Sourcing had some yak butter for sale (or was I dreaming). But it's not listed anymore. What's the closest substitute, taste wise? I mean, I assume it doesn't taste anything like cow butter.

Phyll

Lonely Planet considers yak butter tea number #2 on its list of "Ten Worst Things About Tibet" beating out rabid dogs, sauteed aged lamb's penis and squat toilets. Resembles - very old Liederkranz. Yum! Shen

PS - Yak butter - best when rock hard

Dominic, I remember you mentioned some of those changes and your new situation looks far better. Congrats !

Ahh, definetely some nice destinations, and it all starts with China. If I were you I´d keep that on top of my list since huge slabs of the old China [Tibet] disappear day by day. From my view it´s highly probable you´d find > 95% of the Bhutan you´d find today perfectly the same in 5 years, same with Norway.

Last year I decided to leave India to take care of my grannie who fell seriously sick. Now that I finally got her back on track I had to make a decision - return to my beloved Himalayas or stay in -eek- Germania to start all over again. This time I decided to stay and work for my "financial freedom". Things are looking good, I got a couple new "inventions" to sell, let´s see how it all turns out.

I´m always aware of this and the great luck I have had so far. I talked about all this with many fellow long time travellers and many of us share that deep feeling of gratefulness for being able to travel extensively.

I wish you the same, I just wouldn´t be too sure about it all myself :) Maybe you´re posting from China next week, who knows ... One last thing: whenever I got stuck somewhere, I ALWAYS had that trusty old backpack close by, packed with the few things I really need, some cash ... ready to leave at any time. Just a look at it works miracles. Highly recommended.

Karsten

This sums it up better than any long winded platitude could ever dream to. Rabid dogs, aged lamb penis (no matter the preparation), and squat toilets.

Quite possibly the best thing I've read online in weeks! Thanks for the smile. That's why I come here.

- Dominic