The Appeal Of Tibetan Tea

MOVE ASIDE, PU-ERH TEA. Or at least just leave a little space for the much-lesser-known Tibetan black tea, which will lend an exotic touch to any tea connoisseur's collection.

Tibetan black tea is actually the base of butter tea - the favoured pick-me-up of the indigenous people who mix ordinary tea with salt, milk and butter from local cows or goats as part of their regular diets. While city folk may recoil at the thought of drinking such a concoction, the Tibetans need the high fat for energy to work in the harsh mountainous environment where the air is thin and dry and oxygen levels low.

In Singapore, it's highly unlikely that salty, butter tea made with yak milk will become a trend, but Tibetan black tea itself might be. Despite its name, Tibet is too mountainous to grow its own tea. Rather, the term refers to a strain of tea leaves that originated in Sichuan province but is now grown along the Tibetan border, on the China side.