Barley grows where rice and wheat struggle, and on the Tibetan plateau it has been the base of the diet for millennia - roasted as tsampa, and fermented as chang. Chang is a mild beer made from highland barley, cloudy and pale, with an alcohol content closer to a light ale than to wine, and it is served warm in winter and cool in summer, traditionally from a wooden or ceramic jug and drunk from small bowls. It is the ordinary drink of the plateau rather than a speciality for visitors, and it appears at almost every meal and festival.
Chang and the distilled spirit
Alongside chang, Tibetan households and bars sell a distilled barley spirit, often described locally as barley wine or highland wine, which is clear, considerably stronger - typically forty per cent and upwards - and drunk in very small glasses in the same way as Chinese baijiu. A third form is the sweet fermented rice of the barley, low in alcohol and sometimes served warm as a drink or a dessert. Lhasa and the larger towns also have Chinese beer and spirits in every shop, and bars in the city serve cocktails and imported drinks, but the local barley drinks are what make the region distinctive.
Where to drink it
Chang is served in the sweet tea houses and small restaurants of the old town, often from a large jar with a ladle, and the price is by the jug rather than by the glass. There are also dedicated chang houses, usually plain rooms with benches and low tables, where groups sit for an afternoon over a jug or two and something to eat. In the villages and in the herders' camps it is made at home and offered to guests as a matter of course, which is where the etiquette matters: the host fills your bowl, you drink, and it is refilled.
Practical notes
Chang is weak enough that the main effect of a long afternoon is the altitude rather than the alcohol, but the combination of alcohol and low oxygen is genuinely a problem for newly arrived visitors, so take it slowly for the first few days. Bottled barley spirit and beer are sold in every supermarket in Lhasa and are easy to carry, though weight limits and airline rules apply to alcohol in checked baggage. If you are offered chang in a village, accept at least a little: refusing entirely is awkward, and drinking a small amount is the polite way to respond.
