If you visit Xinjiang, the hospitable hosts will show their welcome by offering you savory milk tea upon receiving you. Milk tea is such an essential drink that the local people would prefer having no food to having no milk tea.

It is not without reason that milk tea is a daily drink among the minority peoples in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

In such a pasture area that is high in altitude and cold in temperature, a lot of meat with comparatively few vegetables is eaten. People in this area need to drink milk tea to get more minerals and to help with their digestion. Besides, the special drink can help them drive away cold in winter and heat in summer.

The way of preparing milk tea is quite simple: Break the tea (which comes in dry hard blocks) into parts and boil in a copper pot.

Pour milk into the tea when it is boiling and then add some salt before drinking. When treating guests at home, the hosts always prepare the drink for immediate consumption.

Writer: Aboutxinjiang.com, June 2006