West Sikkim
At a Limbu table you are likely to be handed a warm millet brew. Visitors call it tongba. Limbus call the drink thee, and tongba is the tall vessel it comes in. Here is what is inside, and how to drink it.
Photo: Renjith Ponnappan / Pexels
The grain
Finger millet, kodo in Nepali and ragi in India, is cooked, mixed with a starter called khesung and left to ferment. Sikkim's Tribal Research Institute writes the pair as Thi-Tongba.
Photo: Second Breakfast
How it is drunk
The grain is packed into the vessel and filled with hot water, then drawn up through a bamboo straw whose filtering tip holds back the seeds. Milky, mild and faintly bready, at about 2 to 5 percent alcohol. Your host keeps adding hot water.
Photo: Labun Hang Limboo / Unsplash
Manners
Take the tongba with both hands, and let your host top up the hot water at least once before you stop. Sewaro is the greeting at a Limbu door. If you do not drink, say so: tea is poured for anyone who prefers it.
Photo: Renjith Ponnappan / Pexels
Darap, 1,800 m (5,910 ft)
We ask a household at Darap, a Limbu village about 8 km below Pelling, to have you in for a cold evening; the brew is at its best on cold nights, November to February. Kinema, sticky fermented soybean, and khareng, a millet or buckwheat roti, may come with it.
Photo: Sahil Pandita / Unsplash
Gangtok
On Kitchens of the Hills, the Nor-Khill's Dragon Bar in Gangtok serves tongba in the evening: hot water poured over fermented millet in a wooden vessel and drawn up through a bamboo straw. We check it is still on the menu before you go.
Photo: Yash Sanghani / Unsplash
Full moon of Mangsir
Chasok Tangnam, the Limbu harvest thanksgiving, falls on the full moon of Mangsir, in November or December. It is kept at home rather than in public, so the welcome you meet that night is a family's own.
Photo: Rohan Kumar / Unsplash
Other cups of the hills
Lepcha households brew chi from black millet and pour a little for the deities before anyone drinks. In Bhutan, suja is butter tea with salt and ara a local rice wine. In the Newar cities of the Kathmandu valley, aila is the rice spirit.
Photo: sanjay saxena / Unsplash
Asking for it
A tongba evening is something we ask a family for, not a promise on their behalf. If you would like a Limbu evening in West Sikkim, say so when we plan, along with who would rather have tea.
Photo: Sahil Pandita