Inside a timber home, perched on a lush mountain slope in Bhutan’s highlands, a grandmother prepares suja. Water is brought to a boil. Tea leaves are added and left to simmer until the liquid deepens into a rich brown. Once brewed, it is poured into a traditional churner. Then comes the defining ingredients: salt and butter made from freshly sourced yak milk. The tea is churned vigorously until frothy, thick, and nourishing.
“Suja, Bhutan’s traditional butter tea, is a living expression of Himalayan history and strength. The tea, once inseparable from everyday life in Himalayan homes, is now finding renewed relevance through tourism, heritage preservation, and a growing interest in slow cultural experiences. For centuries, it has sustained communities across Bhutan, where high altitudes and harsh climates demanded a drink rich in calories and warmth.
“Suja is traditionally prepared by brewing strong tea leaves called Nyashing Jurmo. It’s then churned with fresh butter and salt in a wooden churn until it reaches a smooth, nourishing consistency,” says Laxman Chhetri, country F&B manager at Six Senses Bhutan. Across the kingdom, homestays, and heritage hotels are reintroducing travellers to the ritual of suja-making. Visitors are invited into traditional homes, taught how to churn tea in bamboo vessels, and served the drink alongside puffed rice, zaw. “Hotels offer a suja making class in bamboo churners. There’s a rise in homestays which serve butter tea (suja) with puffed rice (zaw),” says Chef Choda Jamtsho.
But tourism is not the only force reviving suja. Younger chefs and culinary entrepreneurs are beginning to reinterpret traditional Himalayan beverages for contemporary audiences. In cities like Thimphu and Paro, butter tea is increasingly appearing alongside espresso and artisanal teas, introducing youth to flavours once associated with rural households and monasteries.
The revival is also economic. Increased interest in butter tea has created demand for locally sourced yak butter, artisanal churners, and traditional tea blends, indirectly supporting pastoral communities in Bhutan’s higher altitudes. Wellness tourism and social media has further strengthened the drink’s appeal.
Many visitors increasingly associate Himalayan food cultures with slow living, mindfulness, and natural nourishment. Served warm after hikes, meditation retreats, or monastery visits, suja is often positioned as part of a restorative mountain experience. Several wellness-focused lodges now include butter tea ceremonies within broader cultural immersion programmes that combine Bhutanese cuisine, meditation, and storytelling.
This revival mirrors a broader rediscovery of Himalayan tea traditions. In Ladakh, gur-gur chai—a salted butter tea made with yak butter and churned in cylindrical wooden pots—remains deeply woven into daily life. In Kashmir, noon chai or sheer chai occupies a similar emotional space.
Suja, even today, remains intertwined with spiritual life. In monasteries across regions like Gangtey, butter tea is often served to monks after long prayer sessions and religious instruction. On high-altitude treks, it continues to provide warmth and energy against the mountain cold. In many Bhutanese homes, serving butter tea after prayer rituals symbolises completion, gratitude, and togetherness.
In Bhutan today, butter tea is no longer merely a fading relic of mountain life. It is returning as a symbol of identity—one churned carefully between preservation and reinvention.