Buttery Tea

Last night I had a new taste adventure. We visited a Himalayan restaurant, an outing organized by Yosh O.. The food was interesting, but the thing that captured my attention was the Butter Tea. This is a Tibetan style beverage that contains butter as well as tea, and milk. Someone at our table ordered one, and we passed it around to try. It looked more like a cup of milky coffee. It basically tasted like salty warm liquid butter. With a very faint hint of milky black tea. Mostly salt and butter though. I was expecting Yak butter, but the it tasted like regular cow's milk butter to me. But I've never had Yak butter so it could have a similar flavor. We passed the tea around the table, and everyone had a sip. I loved watching the reactions. Every single diner that tried the tea had the same initial response- their face puckered. I think we were expecting something buttery, but not quite as intensely salty. One of my fellow diners said 'This should be Paula Deen's favorite tea'!

This site gives an easy recipe to make the tea at home, if you are interested. It appears to use regular butter and not Yak. I can't say that this is a tea that I enjoyed, but I was happy to taste it. I'd probably order it again at a different Himalayan restaurant, just to see if it tastes any differently. It certainly added an extra conversation piece to our festive evening.