How To Make The Traditional Bhutanese Tea Suja (Butter Tea)

The first time a visitor tastes Bhutanese butter tea, there is always a moment of surprise. It is not sweet. It is not what any Western palate expects from a cup of tea. It is savoury, rich, slightly salty, and tastes more like a warm broth than a beverage. But after the second sip — especially on a cold mountain morning, with mist rising from the valley below — something shifts. You understand. This is not tea as the world knows it. This is suja, and it has been warming the people of the Himalayas for centuries.

In Bhutan, tea is far more than a drink — it is a social custom, a gesture of welcome and farewell. Suja is offered to every guest who enters a Bhutanese home, served with warmth and generosity regardless of the visitor’s age or status. Refusing a cup of suja is like refusing a handshake — technically possible, but not recommended.

Ingredients

3 g tea leaves (about one small cup) · 3 full tablespoons butter · 2 tablespoons salt · 1 tablespoon milk powder · 2½ litres hot water

How to Make Suja

Step 1: Add tea leaves to 2½ litres of boiling water and continue boiling until the water turns a rich, dark brown.

Step 2: Add more hot water to lighten the colour to a warm brown. Strain the tea leaves and pour the liquid into a jasum — the traditional cylindrical churning container.

Step 3: Add butter, salt, and milk powder to the tea.

Step 4: Churn vigorously with the jasum’s piston for 1–2 minutes until the mixture is well combined and frothy. This churning is the crucial step — although butter and salt provide the foundation of flavour, it is the vigour of the churning that truly develops suja’s distinctive taste and creamy texture.

Your suja is ready. Pour it into bowls — traditional Bhutanese style — and serve.

More Than a Drink

Suja is best enjoyed when the air carries a chill — which, in Bhutan’s mountain climate, is most of the year. The rich, creamy warmth it provides is not just comfort but fuel: for farmers heading to the fields at dawn, for monks beginning morning prayers, for trekkers setting off on alpine trails. The butter provides calories and energy, the salt replaces minerals lost at altitude, and the tea itself offers the gentle alertness needed for a long Himalayan day.

If you have been to Bhutan, a cup of suja will bring the memories flooding back — the clatter of the jasum, the kindness of a host refilling your bowl, the mountain air drifting through an open window. If you have not yet visited, making suja at home is the next best thing: the taste of the Thunder Dragon kingdom, one warm, savoury sip at a time.