Adding salt to tea? Tibetans and Hakka in China do it, Indians do it – so ignore the recent social media stir about it

Britons don’t take kindly to salt in tea, as shown by the social media stir over a US chemist’s suggestion that adding it to a cup improves the drink’s flavour

But in parts of India, among China’s Hakka and Tibetans, in Mongolia and Bhutan, salt has been added to tea for as long as anyone can remember

Reading Time:4 minutes

A cup of salty Tibetan tea made with yak butter. It’s not the only tea in Asia served with salt added. Britons who waded into a recent social media debate over the practice only showed how out of touch they were. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 11:15am, 23 Mar 2024

Earlier this year, Dr Michelle Francl, a US-based chemistry professor, set off a storm in a teacup on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) by saying that tea tastes better “with a pinch of salt”.

In a now-viral recipe from her book Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea, Francl says adding a pinch of salt to tea helps “reduce the bitterness” of the brew.

The unconventional suggestion triggered a war of words between Americans and Britons over what constitutes a perfect cup of tea. The reactions from tea-loving Britons were acerbic. “Don’t even say the word ‘salt’ to us,” the etiquette guide Debrett’s wrote on X.

The brew-haha prompted the US embassy in London to release a tongue-in-cheek statement, saying that “the unthinkable notion of adding salt to Britain’s national drink is not official United States policy”.

Milk tea – taken without salt – is sacred to many in the UK, where it is the national drink. Photo: Shutterstock

Francl explains that salt acts as a blocker to the receptor which makes tea taste bitter, especially when it has been stewed.