🌍 Himalayas and Tibet
Also known as: Himalaya, Tibet, Tibetan Plateau
Highlands where the main dairy animal is the yak: butter for tea, chhurpi.
Himalayas and Tibet is a high-mountain region of Asia where herders and farmers live thousands of metres above sea level. At 3,000–5,000 metres ordinary cattle do poorly, and the main dairy animal here is the yak. More than 90% of yaks live on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. In summer the herds are taken up to high pastures, and these are the months of the highest milk yield; in winter there is little milk.
Yak milk is rich and thick. It is churned into butter, which goes into the plateau’s main drink — Tibetan butter tea with salt. Skimmed milk is turned into curd and dried: this makes chhurpi, a very hard cheese that keeps for years and can be chewed for a long time on the road. In Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan chhurpi is also made from the milk of yak–cow hybrids and from cow’s milk.
Yak butter is also used in Buddhist rituals, to fuel lamps. The cold, dry mountain air helps preserve dried dairy products.
What it includes
- Peoples
- Traditional products
- Dairy animals
How it connects to milk
🌍 Himalayas and Tibet ← milked in ← 🐃 Yak → gives → 🥛 Milk
Links
- Traditional products
- 🧀 Chhurpi
- Peoples
- 🧑🤝🧑 Tibetans, 🧑🤝🧑 Sherpas
- Dairy animals
- 🐃 Yak
- Part of
- 🌍 World regions
Frequently asked questions
What is Tibetan butter tea?
Strong tea churned with yak butter and salt; it warms you and gives energy in the cold highlands.
What is chhurpi?
A dried cheese made from yak or cow’s milk; the hard kind keeps for a very long time.
Why do Tibetans milk yaks instead of cows?
Yaks cope better with the cold, thin air and sparse pastures of the highlands.
What to read next
- 🧑🤝🧑 Tibetans — People of the Tibetan Plateau in Central Asia; their signature drink is yak-butter tea, and milk is dried into hard chhurpi cheese.
- 🐃 Yak — Highlands of Tibet and Mongolia. The milk is rich and is made into butter and dried cheese.
- 🧑🤝🧑 Sherpas — Mountain people of Nepal living around Everest; yak and dzo milk goes into butter for tea and the hard dried cheese chhurpi.
Similar
🌍 West Africa · 🌍 Southern Africa · 🌍 Arctic and the North · 🌍 Carpathians · 🌍 Central Europe · 🌍 North America
Sources
- FAO — Dairy animals: Other animals (yak, horse, donkey)
- Tibetan Plateau yak milk: A comprehensive review of nutritional values, health benefits, and processing technology. Food Chemistry: X, 2023
- Exploring trade prospects of Chhurpi and the present status of Chhurpi producers and exporters of Nepal. Journal of Ethnic Foods, 2023