Buttered tea is the favorite drink of Tibetan people. It is made of boiled brick tea and ghee. Ghee, which looks like butter, is a kind of dairy product of fat abstracted from cow milk or sheep milk. Tibetan people like the ghee made of yak milk. When they make buttered tea, they mix boiled brick tea and ghee in a special can, add some salt, pour the mixed liquid into a pottery or metal teapot and finally heat up it (but not boil it). Different people have different tastes for the buttered tea. Some people like salty flavor, others prefer to light flavor. People who do manual labors, especially men, like the strong-tasted, cream-like buttered tea. Old people, children and women like light-flavored tea. People usually heat up the buttered tea because cold buttered tea is not easy to be digested and does harm to one’s stomach.
During the Yuan Dynasty of the 13th-14th century the central government appointed a department to manage affairs in Tibet and brought Tibet under their direct management. The Ming Dynasty set up a local government in Tibet, and the Qing Dynasty subsequently appointed a ministry to deal with affairs in Tibet and Mongolia. The central government officially approved the title of Dalai Lama in 1653 and the title of Panchen Lama in 1713. In 1728 a resident minister in charge of the Tibetan affairs was appointed, followed by the creation of the “Gexia”, or Tibetan local government, in 1751.
In 1934 the Government of the Republic of China set up a resident agency to administer affairs in Tibet, and in 1959, Tibet Autonomous Region was established.