🧑🤝🧑 Sherpas
Also known as: Sherpa people
Mountain people of Nepal living around Everest; yak and dzo milk goes into butter for tea and the hard dried cheese chhurpi.
The Sherpa are a mountain people of Nepal living in the high valleys around Everest, in the Solukhumbu area. Their ancestors came from Tibet, and the Sherpa way of life is close to the Tibetan one: potatoes and barley in the valleys, and on the high pastures yaks and their crosses with cattle, dzo.
The milk of yaks and dzo is made into butter for salty tea, yogurt and chhurpi, a hard cheese that is dried and keeps for a long time. Hard chhurpi can be sucked for a long time like a candy and is taken on long treks. Soft chhurpi is added to soups and fillings.
Today many Sherpa work in mountain tourism and mountaineering, but dairy from their own herds is still important to families in the highlands. Hard chhurpi from Nepal is even exported abroad.
How it connects to milk
🧑🤝🧑 Sherpas ← among ← 🐃 Yak → gives → 🥛 Milk
Links
- Where they live
- 🌍 Himalayas and Tibet
- Traditions
- 🧀 Chhurpi
- Dairy animals
- 🐃 Yak
Frequently asked questions
What do Sherpas eat?
Potatoes, barley and tsampa, along with dairy from yak and dzo milk: butter, yogurt and chhurpi.
What is a dzo?
A cross between a yak and a cow; dzo give more milk and cope better with middle altitudes.
What is hard chhurpi?
A very hard dried cheese made from yak or cow’s milk that keeps for a long time.
Similar
ℹ️ This page describes the people only through food: what they grow and make, and which foods and drinks matter in their traditions. History, language, religion and other parts of the culture are not covered here.
What it includes
- Dairy animals
Sources
- Exploring trade prospects of Chhurpi and the present status of Chhurpi producers and exporters of Nepal. Journal of Ethnic Foods, 2023
- FAO — Dairy animals: Other animals (yak, horse, donkey)