Mongolian Ethnic Minority: Tea with Milk

Living in Inner Mongolia and some areas adjoining to the province, the Mongolians mainly live on beef and mutton, complemented with rice and vegetables. The brick tea is an indispensable beverage to herdsmen and drinking salty tea with milk is a Mongolian tradition. The Mongolians usually have tea three times and one meal a day. To drink salty tea with milk is not only a way of quenching thirst but also the main nourishing source. Every morning, the first thing that a housewife does is to prepare a pot of salty tea with milk for the whole family. The Mongolians like drinking hot tea, so they usually drink the tea while eating fried rice in the morning and leave the pot on the fire. Every day, Mongolians go out in the early morning and graze the herd for a whole day, so they only have one meal in a day after they return home in the evening, but they keep drinking salty tea with milk three times a day.

The salty tea with milk uses green or black brick tea as its main material and an iron pot as the cooker. Fill the iron pot with 2-3 kilograms of water, and then put 50-80 grams of brick tea pieces into the pot once the water boils. After another 5 minutes, pour milk into the pot with a ratio of 1/5 to water and stir it, and then add certain amount of salt. When the whole pot of the mixture boils, the salty tea with milk is ready to be served.

Naxi Ethnic Minority: Fight between Dragon and Tiger Tea and Salty Tea

The Naxi people lives on the cold plateau in northwest Yunnan Province where the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain lies and three rivers are running, namely the Jinsha River, the Lancang River and the Yalong River. The fight between dragon and tiger tea, a kind of tea mixed with white spirit mainly distilled from sorghum or maize, is regarded as a good medicine to dispel cold, so it is favored by the Naxi people.

The brewing method of fight between dragon and tiger tea is also very special. First, put some tea in a galipot when the water is boiling on the fire, and then baked the tea together with the pot. To avoid that the tea is singed, one needs to keep on turning the pot to let the tea be heated evenly. When the scent of the tea is baked out, pour the boiling water in the pot and cook it for 3-5 minutes. At the same time, pour the white spirit into a cap-cup with an amount of half cup, and then add the tea into the same cup. When the two kinds of liquid mix together, they will give out crack sound, which is regarded as a good omen by the Naxi people, so louder the sound, happier the people on the spot. The tea is also believed to be a good medicine to cure cold, so better drink the tea when it is still hot. One can refresh oneself through drinking the delicious and strong tea. When making the fight between dragon and tiger tea, one must not pour the white spirit into the tea, but the other way round.

The brewing procedure of the salty tea is similar to that of the fight between dragon and tiger tea, but only replace the white spirit with salt. The Naxi people also make other kinds of tea, such as the oil tea which is made by adding cooking oil and sugar tea by adding sugar.