Helpful Tibetan Customs for Tibet Travel - Drinking Wine & Dining

Drinking Wine

With enriched ceremonies and eiquettes of drinking in Tibet (learn more Tibet via Tibet Travel), new wine should be firstly toasted to Buddha in fresh. After it, should to toast to the elders in the family as the elders priority in tradition before other family members drink it. When drinking in festivals, wedding ceremony or public gathering, people usually toast to prestigious elders before toast to others in clockwise. One who proposes a toast should carry wine cup with both hands to whom he toasts to particular to the elders. People who accept the wine cup use both hands too, the right way is to hold it by right hand first, dip the ring finger of left into wine and flick it up three times before drinking. Flick wine up three times is praying for Tritatna, namely Buddha.


Don't drink it out at once while drinking, however follow the rule of three sips and one cup. Guests flick wine to toast for Buddha first before taking sip and then the cup is going to be refilled up. People accepting the toast should drink wine out when wine cup refilled up for the third time. It shows the ultimate sincerity to the person who proposes the toast.

Dining

Dining custom in Tibet is quite perculiar too. As the host and guests are seated in certain positions, they pick up food from the table placed in front of them and eat separately. Tibetan cuisine includes dried meat, cheese cake, cake, ginseng fruit cake, dried yak meat, spicy oxtrip, sausage, stewed mutton stew, lamb's head stew and so on. Staple food includes: butter, zanba, steamed cake with cheese, Tibetan steamed cake, Tibetan dumplings, noodles and deep fried refreshments. With tastes of mild and light, Tibetan food culture features a sense of nature.


There are many Tibetan restautants of different levels in cities and towns through Tibet. Decorations of these ones, are more or less in Tibetan style. Wooden tables shaped as dog hoop, steel stoves, china bowls, with a pattern of bkra-shis-rtags-brgyad, Tibetan carpet, auspicious figures and frescoes are all embodiments of spiritual pursuits of Tibetan.

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