I've been cruising around, looking for new bloggable topics, and I'm become quite tired of the usual samsaric stuff, which is a pretty usual response to samsara, is it not?
Hence a post about Paris Hilton, and coming your way now is a whole post about Tibetan tea. I was looking for a marinade recipe when I stumbled across Toast Points, a lovely food-ish blog. There, synchronistically enough, I found talk of momos and Tibetan tea.
Tibetan tea, one must make clear, is generally not a summer drink. It is a long hard winter kinda drink, a drink to drink when one is sitting on a cold monastery floor trying not to freeze to death. Or when one is trying not to freeze to death under other wintry circumstances.
I love Tibetan tea. I've always loved Tibetan tea.
Other things Tibetan that I've always loved, prior to knowing anything Tibetan: archery. Horseback riding. Blue lakes in high places.
Things Tibetan that I've always not loved: tsampa. Traditional Tibetan grease soup. (Don't ask/don't tell). Having to wear chubas so long that they drag in the mud on purpose so as not to show one's ankles (did horrid British Victorian travellers to Tibet inflict upon them that anti-ankle thing? yecch.)
So, here's how you make Tibetan tea, and if you don't like it, don't make it.
Make some strong kinda tea. Darjeeling, Assam, something with heft to it. Steep it a while. When it's a nice strong brown color, put it in a pot on the stove, and put the pot on 'low.' You want it warm, not boiling.
Add a big chunk of butter -- more than you think is healthy.
Add salt -- more than you think is healthy.
Add cream (yes, cream!!) in desired proportions, so it makes a nice beige color.
Then -- beat it all together with a whisk. Taste it.
(If you don't like it, stop now.)
If you do like it -- see? It's really good.
(More tea synchronicity, as Buddhist Jihad learns that topping the summer reading list of Jacqueline of Advice from Abu Shri is Chogyam Trungpa's "The Teacup and The Skullcup" here. )
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