What to drink in Nepal
Chiya — sweet milky spiced tea — is the social currency of Nepal. Beyond it: tongba, hot millet beer drunk through a straw in the east; raksi, the home-distilled spirit; chhaang, cloudy rice beer; and lassi. This guide covers what each is, where it belongs, and the safety caveats around home-brewed alcohol.
Part of What to eat in Nepal
Nepal runs on chiya. Tea is offered on arrival everywhere — a shop, an office, a home, a lodge — and accepting it is not optional so much as it is the interaction itself.
Beyond tea, Nepal has a set of traditional alcoholic drinks tied closely to specific ethnic communities: tongba to the Limbu of the east, chhaang and aila to Himalayan and Newar communities, raksi almost everywhere. They are worth trying, with sensible caution.
चिया Chiya — the national drink
Nepali chiya is black tea boiled with milk and sugar as a single preparation, not assembled at the table. Masala chiya adds cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, clove and sometimes black pepper.
It is sweet by default — often much sweeter than visitors expect — and it is served small and hot. It is also offered constantly, and refusing tea in Nepal reads as refusing the person.
- 'Kalo chiya' — black tea, no milk. Often served with sugar unless you say otherwise.
- 'Chini kam' — less sugar. 'Chini nahalne' — no sugar.
- 'Dudh chiya' — milk tea, the default.
- 'Masala chiya' — spiced milk tea.
- Ilam in eastern Nepal is Nepal's tea-growing region and produces genuinely good orthodox leaf tea, quite different from the boiled street version. Worth buying to take home.
- Butter tea (su cha / po cha) in the high Himalaya is salted tea churned with butter — a savoury drink that surprises people and is genuinely useful at altitude.
तोङ्बा Tongba — the one to seek out
Tongba is a Limbu drink from eastern Nepal and is unlike anything else. Fermented whole millet is packed into a wooden or bamboo vessel, hot water is poured in, and the drink is sipped through a narrow bamboo straw with a filter at the bottom.
You refill the same millet with hot water repeatedly over an evening, and it gets progressively weaker. It is warm, mildly alcoholic, faintly sour and completely absorbing, and it is the ideal cold-weather drink in the eastern hills.
Look for it in eastern Nepal — Ilam, Taplejung, Dharan — and in Limbu and Kirat restaurants in Kathmandu.
The other traditional drinks
Each belongs to a community and a context rather than being generically Nepali.
- रक्सी Raksi — clear home-distilled spirit, usually from millet or rice. Strong, widespread, and made in homes across the hills. Strength varies enormously.
- छ्याङ Chhaang — cloudy, mildly alcoholic rice or millet beer, drunk in Himalayan and Tamang communities. Refreshing and low in alcohol.
- अयला Aila — the Newar distilled spirit, integral to Newar feasts and traditionally served in a clay cup with samay baji.
- लस्सी Lassi — yoghurt drink, sweet or salted, common in the terai and in Kathmandu.
- जुजु धौ Juju dhau — Bhaktapur's thick sweet clay-pot curd. Eaten rather than drunk, but in the same family.
- Commercial Nepali beer is widely available and perfectly good; a large domestic brewing industry exists.
The honest caution about home-brewed alcohol
Raksi, aila, chhaang and tongba are made at home across Nepal and are not subject to any meaningful quality control. Alcohol strength varies unpredictably between batches and households.
Drink modestly, prefer places with an established reputation or a family you know, and treat anything served from an unlabelled container by a stranger with the caution you would apply anywhere in the world. Methanol contamination in unregulated spirits is a documented hazard in many countries and is not worth gambling on.
Also note: alcohol at altitude is a genuinely bad idea. It suppresses breathing during sleep, dehydrates you and masks early altitude symptoms. Standard trekking advice is to avoid alcohol above about 3,000 m.
Water, and the plastic problem
Tap water is not potable anywhere in Nepal. Treat everything — filter, chlorine dioxide tablets, UV device or a genuine rolling boil — including water served in a jug and water described as 'boiled'.
Bottled water is available everywhere and is generally safe, but it is expensive at altitude and creates a serious waste problem in trekking regions, where several municipalities have moved against single-use plastic. Refill stations exist on the main routes.
Carrying a filter or a UV pen for a two-week trip costs less than the bottled water it replaces, weighs almost nothing, and removes the question entirely.
Key takeaways
- ✓Chiya — sweet milky spiced tea — is offered constantly and accepting it is the interaction. Ask for 'chini kam' if it is too sweet.
- ✓Tongba, hot millet beer sipped through a bamboo straw, is the most distinctive drink in Nepal. Find it in the east.
- ✓Raksi, chhaang and aila are home-made with no quality control — drink modestly and prefer established places.
- ✓Avoid alcohol above about 3,000 m; it suppresses breathing, dehydrates and masks altitude symptoms.
- ✓Tap water is never potable. Carry a filter rather than buying bottles, especially on trek.
Explore the data behind this guide
Nepali Drinks — FAQ
What is Nepali chiya?+
Black tea boiled together with milk and sugar as a single preparation, often spiced with cardamom, ginger and cinnamon (masala chiya). It is served small, hot and sweet, and is offered constantly in shops, offices and homes — accepting it is the polite norm.
What is tongba?+
A Limbu drink from eastern Nepal: fermented whole millet packed into a wooden vessel, topped with hot water and sipped through a bamboo straw. The same millet is refilled with hot water over an evening. It is warm, mildly alcoholic and the ideal cold-weather drink.
What is raksi?+
Clear home-distilled Nepali spirit, usually made from millet or rice, produced in homes across the hills. It is strong and its strength varies unpredictably between batches since it is not subject to quality control — drink modestly and prefer places with an established reputation.
Can you drink alcohol while trekking in Nepal?+
It is a bad idea above about 3,000 m. Alcohol suppresses breathing during sleep, dehydrates you, and masks early symptoms of acute mountain sickness — all of which increase altitude risk. Standard trekking advice is to avoid it at altitude.
Can you drink the tap water in Nepal?+
No, nowhere in Nepal. Treat all drinking water with a filter, chlorine dioxide tablets, a UV device or a genuine rolling boil — including jug water in restaurants and water described as 'boiled', which may only have been heated.
Related guides
Sources & data note
Nepali cuisine varies sharply by ethnicity, altitude and region, and there is no single authoritative reference for dish names, ingredients or spellings — Newar, Thakali, Sherpa, Madhesi, Tharu and Limbu food traditions each name and prepare things differently. The descriptions here are our own synthesis of widely-documented Nepali food practice, and romanised spellings follow common Nepali usage rather than any standard. Price ranges are planning estimates observed across Nepal and are not quoted from any published source. Food-safety guidance follows CDC and WHO traveller advice; nothing here is medical advice. Guides are written from primary sources — Nepali government departments, operators, park authorities and standards bodies — and each guide lists the sources used for its own facts. Rules, fees and prices in Nepal change; treat figures as current at the review date shown on each guide and verify anything money- or visa-critical with the issuing authority before you rely on it.
- Nepal Tourism Board — official site (destinations and traveller information)Nepal Tourism Board ↗
- National Population and Housing Census 2021 — caste/ethnicity and religionNational Statistics Office, Nepal ↗
- World Health Organization — Nepal country officeWorld Health Organization ↗
- Department of Food Technology and Quality ControlGovernment of Nepal ↗
- Travellers' diarrhoea — CDC Yellow BookUS Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ↗