Tea with Milk is a special kind of tea drinking for
Mongolian Ethnic Minority.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.
Mongolian milk tea, also known as Suutei Tsai, is a traditional Mongolian hot drink. The fresh milk is added to boiled black tea and stirred together. Salt is often added, and some people put in butter-fried rice and dairy products. Drinking this kind of milk tea is the traditional custom of the Mongolian people. In addition to quenching their thirst, it is also a major method of supplementing human nutrition. Tea contains rich nutrients such as tannin, amino acids, essential oils, caffeine, vitamins C, D and B. It has a variety of medicinal functions, as well as dissolving fat and promoting digestion. As a result, tea -- especially brick tea -- has gradually occupied an important position in the lives of the Mongolian people.