EXTENSIVE USE OF BRICK TEA. 197 



if tea cannot be afforded ; the third of meat, rice, 

 vegetables, and bread, by the upper; and soup, 

 porridge, and bread, by the lower classes. At 

 breakfast each person drinks about five or ten cups 

 of tea, each cup containing about one third of a 

 pint ; and when the last is half finished, he mixes 

 with the remainder as much barley-meal as makes 

 a paste with it, which he eats.* At the mid-day 

 meal, those who can afford tea take it again, with 

 the wh eaten cakes, accompanied with a paste of 

 wheat flour, butter, and sugar, served hot. The 

 poorer people, instead of tea, boil two parts of 

 barley flower with one of water, or meat broth, 

 seasoned with salt, until it becomes of the thickness 

 of porridge. The evening meal of the upper classes 

 is formed of some preparation of the flesh of sheep, 

 goats, or yaks, and eaten with rice, vegetables, and 

 wheaten cakes, leavened or unleavened. The poorer 

 classes eat at night the same barley porridge as at 

 noon ; or a soup made of fresh vegetables, if pro- 

 curable, or of dried turnips, radishes, and cabbage, 

 boiled with salt and pepper, in water, along with 

 pieces of stiff dough and wheaten flour. The use 

 of tea has been common amongst the wealthy 

 Tibetans for some centuries, but it has been uni- 



* The reason of this is, that " a rich fatty scum floats upon 

 the surface, which is too precious to be lost. It is blown aside 

 in drinking to be mixed with malt- meal, and well kneaded 

 with the fingers by way of conclusion to the feast." (Turner's 

 Embassy to the Teshoo Lama, p. 176.) 



o 3 



