Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1893 — Tea in Thibet. [ARTICLE]

Tea in Thibet.

All of the tea used in Mongolia and Thibet comes in the shape of bricks, which have a uniform weight of five

pounds, measuring nine inches In length by six inches in width and three inches in thickness. The tea of which they are composed is not the plant to which we are accustomed. It is obtained from a large and woody shrub. The small twigs and leaves ' are steamed, the sticks being dried ! and ground to powder. The stuff I thus prepared is mixed with a little rice-water to make it sticky, and is then rammed into a mold by means of a wooden stick shod with iron. Such tea would be considered too poor for use in China proper, where all of it is manufactured and whence it is exported for consumption by the ignorant dwellers on the frontier. The Thibetans cannot get along without tea. It is said that they even sell their children for it to their graspiug priests, who control the 1 trade and hoard the bricks like gold in the monasteries. These tea bricks have circulated as currency at a fixed value in Mongolia and Thibet, but in the latter country they have recently become demonetized, owing to the introduction of rupees from India. Until lately a brick of tea was worth one rupee. The monks of the Batang monastery in Thibet, having hoarded great treasures in the shape of tea bricks, have found it impossible to dispose of them at par. Of course you know that Thibet is a province of China and a part of the empire. Chinese diplomatic officials make a practice of smuggling tea into Thibet in the guise of baggage, thus enriching themselves greatly. The Thibetans say: “They come into our country withi ouli trousers and they depart with a thousand loaded yaks.” The Thibetan teapot is a churn, like an ordinary butter-churn. They take a small portion from a brick, pound it in a mortar, make an infusion, strain it, and pour it into the churn, adding a little salt. A lump of butter is thrown in, and the mixture is churned for a while. Then it is ready to drink. The result is described as resembling weak tea, with the sugar and tea left out.