Food & Drink in Jiuzhaigou

You can both enjoy beautiful scenery and intoxicating wine in Jiuzhai valley(Jiuzhaigou). Tibetan and Qiang people are very hospitable, and you can also find their enthusiasm in their food culture. The main local food is beef and mutton, but the cooking method is different between Tibetan people and Qiang people: Tibetan people always eat baked meat, coupled with barley wine, melted butter tea, yogurt and other drinks; but Qiang people like sour and spicy dishes, and animal pluck. However, local Han people like Sichuan food.
Most food ingredients are transported from other provinces, so the food is very expensive. We suggest that tourists don’t have to worry about eating stuff, because you can eat Potato Tsampa, Jiuzhai valley(Jiuzhaigou) Persimmon, Buckwheat Bread, Jiuzhai valley(Jiuzhaigou) Pickled Noddles, etc.
The local flavor includes Roasted Whole Lame, Grilled Steak, Mixed Noddles, Potato Tsapa, and Barley Wine. You can buy them at all those hotels or hostels but all expensive. However, these food are all Tibetan food. If you are from mainland, you may not like them, so you should choose food carefully.

Tsampa
Tsapa is the main food of Tibetan people, like fried noodles in mainland. The main ingredients include barley, beans, cereals, etc. Tibetan people always bring tsampa with them whenever they go to work on the field, or go grazing on the mountain, or go to travel. Tsampa is convenient to carry and easy to eat. Thus, in pastoral, with boundless area, few people, and a lack of fuel, tsampa is a kind of food which is inexpensive, convenient and practical.
Usually you pinch a cloud of Tsampa and tear it up to eat. Besides, it also contains melted butter, sugar, and barley wine. People from mainland may do not like it, but you can taste it if you are interested.

Melted Butter Tea
The main ingredients include melted butter, milk, walnut, peanut, sesame seeds, egg and salt. These ingredients are put into the mixing bucket first, then tea is poured into the bucket after they are boiled turning into brown-red. Next you sway the bucket for a while, and finally a bucket of fragrant melted butter tea is finished. Cooked melted butter tea is usually poured into a large pot and put it on light flame to keep warm.
Melted butter tea is salty, so many people will not like it when they first taste it. But sweet melted butter tea suits for people from mainland because it is like milk tea.

Barley Wine
Barley wine is the necessary drink for Tibetan people, as well as the good drinks for serving guests or on festivals. Put barley or wheat into wine for fermentation after washing it, after several days it will become a light yellow wine. It is a little sour and a little sweet, called “Tibetan Beer”. There are many kinds of barley wine, including white wine with high number of liquor, and barley drinks with little liquor.

Blood Sausage
Blood sausage is the top food in Tibetan area. If the host serve guests with blood sausage, it is the honor of guests. Blood sausage is made of casting, blood, spices and yak meat (or pork), which is really nutritious and delicious.

Barley Pancake
Barley pancake is baked from barley flour, which is golden yellow, sweet and delicious.

Pickled Dough
It is a kind of typically traditional Tibetan food. When cooking it, you should put some pickled vegetables, then add some smoked pork or fresh yak meat, finally add some potatoes, dough, salt and green onion.

Yak Meat
Yak meat is a kind of normal food in Tibetan area, including dried yak meat, pot-stewed yak meat and dishes made of fresh yak meat.

Buckwheat Noddles
You can use buckwheat to make many kinds of delicious food after it is powered into flour, like buckwheat bum, and buckwheat noddles. A bowl of beef buckwheat noddles with some side dish, though simple, it is the local Tibetan flavor.

Potato Tsampa
Potato tsampa is made of potatoes. First, you should cook potatoes, peel the skins, then pound it into highly viscous semi-dry paste. When you want to eat, you can cut it into pieces, cook it with pickled vegetables and water. If you add some pepper or honey, it will taste more delicious.

Other food
Other food like cheese, cottage cheese, milky cheese, tofu, and bacon, etc, is also typically delicious. Yogurt: boil milk first, pour it into a wooden bucket, add some old yogurt as fermentation, with the temperature of 30 to 40 degrees, finally it is finished. Yogurt looks like tender tofu, with a fragrant aroma, sour, sweet but yummy.