The Indian subcontinent · Volume 24, Nepal, Bhutan, Ladakh, Sikkim and Darjeeling
Butter tea, suja and gur gur cha
Bhutan (suja) and Ladakh (gur gur cha), functionally identical to the wider Tibetan po cha
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 15 minutes
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
One dish under two names, claimed independently by Bhutan (suja) and Ladakh (gur gur cha), and functionally identical to the wider Tibetan po cha: black tea, salt and butter, churned rather than merely stirred, until the fat properly emulsifies into the liquid. It is worth stating plainly that despite being one of the most-written-about dishes in this whole chapter, in English at least, no source this research could find, Bhutanese, Ladakhi or Sikkimese, gave a recipe with genuinely precise local quantities; what follows is the best converging figure across the sources available.
As tradition built it
Serves 2. About 15 minutes.
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp loose black tea
- 500 ml water
- 1 to 2 tbsp butter
- 1/4 tsp salt, to taste, some households take it considerably saltier
Method
- Simmer the loose black tea in the water for 5 to 7 minutes until strong and dark, then strain.
- Combine the hot tea with the butter and salt in a tall churn or a heatproof jug, and churn vigorously, traditionally with a wooden dasher worked up and down for several minutes, until the mixture is smooth, pale and faintly frothy, a genuine emulsion rather than tea with fat floating on top.
- Serve hot, and refill the cup as it is drunk, the traditional mark of hospitality to a guest.
What a modern chef changes
A blender emulsion and a table-side tsampa bowl
Rung 6
Method
- First, use a high-power blender in place of the traditional dasher for a faster, more thorough emulsion, thirty seconds rather than several minutes of hand-churning, while being honest that this trades ritual for efficiency rather than improving the result technically.
- Second, use a cultured, salted butter with a higher fat content than a standard British block, the closest honest analogue this chapter could find to yak butter's richer character, see Sourcing above.
- Third, infuse the tea with a small amount of smoked black tea alongside the standard base, for a depth that stands in, imperfectly but usefully, for the faint smokiness some traditional preparations carry from being brewed over an open hearth.
- Fourth, serve alongside, rather than folded into, a small bowl of roasted tsampa, so a diner can build their own tsampa-and-butter-tea mixture at the table exactly as tradition does, rather than the chapter pre-combining the two into something tidier but less honest to how the dish is actually eaten.