Been trying to make authentic Tibetan butter tea but I can't find any yak
butter nor any wooden tea bowls! Help!!!

On Sep 11, 6:58 am, "Zippy P" wrote:
Been trying to make authentic Tibetan butter tea but I can't find any yak
butter nor any wooden tea bowls! Help!!!

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

On Sep 11, 4:06 am, wrote:
On Sep 11, 6:58 am, "Zippy P" wrote:

Been trying to make authentic Tibetan butter tea but I can't find any yak
butter nor any wooden tea bowls! Help!!!

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
http://teasphere.wordpress.com

On Sep 11, 9:37 am, "Dominic T." wrote:
On Sep 11, 4:06 am, wrote:

On Sep 11, 6:58 am, "Zippy P" wrote:

Been trying to make authentic Tibetan butter tea but I can't find any yak
butter nor any wooden tea bowls! Help!!!

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,
- Dominichttp://teasphere.wordpress.com

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

On Sep 11, 4:37 pm, "Dominic T." wrote:

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.

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

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.

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.

http://tinyurl.com/2sumtf

Karsten [Ceylon home blend in tazza]

On Sep 11, 11:30 am, wrote:
On Sep 11, 4:37 pm, "Dominic T." wrote:

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.

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

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.

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.

http://tinyurl.com/2sumtf

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
http://teasphere.wordpress.com

On Sep 10, 9:58 pm, "Zippy P" wrote:
Been trying to make authentic Tibetan butter tea but I can't find any yak
butter nor any wooden tea bowls! Help!!!

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

On Sep 11, 5:48 pm, "Dominic T." wrote:

Wow, nice photo! very cool.

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]

On Sep 10, 9:58 pm, "Zippy P" wrote:
Been trying to make authentic Tibetan butter tea but I can't find any yak
butter nor any wooden tea bowls! Help!!!

Rosewood tea bowls -
http://cgi.ebay.com/LUXURIOUS-Butter...QQcmdZViewItem

Shen

In article ,
Zippy P wrote:
Been trying to make authentic Tibetan butter tea but I can't find any yak
butter nor any wooden tea bowls! Help!!!

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
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Sep 11, 8:05 pm, Shen wrote:
On Sep 10, 9:58 pm, "Zippy P" wrote:

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

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

On Sep 11, 2:18 pm, wrote:
On Sep 11, 5:48 pm, "Dominic T." wrote:

Wow, nice photo! very cool.

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]

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.

On Sep 11, 9:58 pm, "Dominic T." wrote:
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

On Sep 11, 9:58 pm, "Dominic T." wrote:
... 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.

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

On Sep 11, 5:40 pm, wrote:
On Sep 11, 9:58 pm, "Dominic T." wrote:

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

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
http://teasphere.wordpress.com