LOCAL FOOD GUIDE

Tsampa Roasted Barley Flour 糌粑

Zanba

Tsampa Roasted Barley Flour is featured among the local specialties of Gansu.

Roasted barley flour and butter for preparing tsampa, before mixing. This is an ingredient photograph, not a finished serving.
Dish photograph · see caption for contextRoasted barley flour and butter for preparing tsampa, before mixing. This is an ingredient photograph, not a finished serving. The source photograph does not establish a local vendor, current menu or universal regional recipe.Photo: jqn · CC BY-SA 2.0
Photo adjustments

EXIF orientation applied where present; resized proportionally to at most 640 px on the long edge and encoded as WebP. No crop, retouching, recoloring or subject changes.

Tsampa Roasted Barley Flour (糌粑) is flour milled from highland barley, qingke (青稞), which is roasted with its hulls still on before it is ground; pea flour is sometimes mixed in. Chinese Wikipedia describes it as the staple food of Tibetan people.

How it is eaten

Tsampa Roasted Barley Flour is mixed in a bowl when it is eaten. Butter tea goes into the bowl first; the barley flour is added on top of it, together with qula (曲拉), a dried cheese, and with sugar and qingke barley wine. The eater then works everything together with the fingers inside the bowl until it is evenly mixed.

Flavour and texture

Chinese Wikipedia describes the result as soft in the mouth, sweet and fragrant, and notes that it is rich in fat, protein and sugars.

Where it comes from

Chinese Wikipedia gives three reasons it suits the herding life of farming and pastoral areas: the flour needs only simple processing, it is easy to carry, and it keeps for a long time without spoiling.

Questions before you order

What is mixed into Tsampa Roasted Barley Flour?

Butter tea is poured into the bowl first, and the flour goes in with qula (dried cheese), sugar and qingke barley wine; everything is mixed by hand in the bowl.

Source introduction: Wikipedia contributors: 糌粑 · CC BY-SA 4.0. English translation and adaptation of the cited encyclopedia revision.

China Revealed · Editorially updated 2026-09-24

Sources & reading

Adapted into English from the cited encyclopedia revision and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-24. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.