There are two teas in Tibet, and they do different jobs. Butter tea is the ceremonial and rural drink: brick tea churned with yak butter and salt, served in small wooden bowls. Sweet tea - cha ngamo - is the city drink: black tea boiled with milk and sugar, served in glass tumblers or poured from a thermos, and drunk all day in tea houses that are part canteen, part living room.
How it works
Sweet tea houses in Lhasa are usually plain rooms with long tables, bench seating and a counter where the tea is poured from huge kettles. You order by the glass or by the thermos. Glasses are refilled continuously - staff walk the room with a kettle and top you up, and pay is settled at the end by counting the glasses or simply by the seat. In many places a glass costs one or two yuan, and a large thermos for a group costs the price of a coffee in Europe.
Where to go
The tea house attached to the Ani Tsangkang nunnery, a short walk north of the Barkhor, is the best known: it is run by nuns, it is always full, and the sweet tea is excellent. Others cluster around the Barkhor and along the lanes of the old town, some with a television, some with a view of the street, some with nothing but tea and conversation. Look for the ones where the customers are Tibetan and the door is propped open.
What to eat with it
Tea houses serve momos, thukpa noodle soup, balep flatbread and sometimes a simple curry. It is normal to eat a full breakfast or lunch here for a few dollars. Vegetarians can eat momos and bread comfortably; ask whether the soup base is meat.
Practical notes
Sweet tea houses open early and close in the late afternoon, and the busiest hours are mid-morning and after lunch. There is no menu in English in most of them; pointing and holding up fingers works fine. Bring small notes, since change is often limited. As a foreigner in Tibet you travel with a guide and permits in any case, and a tea house break is one of the easiest places to spend twenty minutes without any language at all.
