The Materiality of Tibetan-Style Tea (Bod Ja) and the Constitution of the Tibetan Subject

• In Event: 165. Global Tea Initiatives: Horticultural Practice and Gastronomical Perspectives in Tea History. Sponsored by UC Davis Global Tea Initiative

Abstract

To what extent do modes of consumption determine differences between people? The material circulation of Tibetan-style tea (or bod ja) offers one answer to this question, as is evident through historical descriptions of the substance as well as through its functions among members of the Tibetan diaspora community in Taipei and Berkeley. Based on historical patterns of trade between Chinese and Tibetan communities, representations of tea in Tibetan texts such as the seventeenth century "Dispute between Tea and Chang" (or Ja-Chang Lha-moʼi bsTan-bcos) identify tea as ethnically Chinese, and thus differentiable from more indigenous foodstuffs such as barley. Given its widespread consumption within varied Tibetan communities since that time, tea becomes integral to certain aspects Tibetan identity. Particularly relevant to this study is the adaptation of tea (or ja) from its purported Chinese identity to its form as bod ja, a salty buttered tea frequently circulated among Tibetan diaspora communities and marketed to non-Tibetans. The addition of the ethnonym bod to ja, and its concomitant mode of drinking, thus epitomize the Tibetan assimilation of tea, a process that also provides some perspective into the development of Tibetan ethnic identity as a whole. However, this study remains primarily concerned with presenting a narrative overview of this process of assimilation through a diversity of sources. In addition to relevant textual analyses, this study also incorporates analytical methods from relevant disciplines, including art-historical formalism in identifications of Tibetan-style tea preparations and ethnographic fieldwork for contemporary modes of bod ja consumption.

Author

• Jon Soriano, UC Berkeley