Beber chá com manteiga de iaque rançosa em uma história?

O livro é provavelmente Rocket Man de Lee Correy ( AKA, G. Harry Stine).

"My name is Tenzing Sonam of Sola Khumbu, Nepal. This is my friend, Posang Tharkey." He extended his hand. When I saw the alpine ice axe leaning against the foot of the bed, the problem was solved! I remembered the old photographs of the conquest of Mount Everest. These two boys were Sherpas!
With a grin, I asked, "Sola Khumbu is close to Everest, isn't it?" "It lies in the shadow of the Goddess Mother of the World, yes," Posang Tharkey answered. "What are you doing in New Mexico ?"
"We're Co-ops," Tenzing Sonam answered proudly. "Rocket engineers ?"
One of the first things they did was unpack some Tibetan tea. It wasn't the usual kind of tea I knew. It came in little bricks instead of powdered form. Then Posang got some butter, salted it, and treated Ham and me to an ancient Sherpa social drink; Tibetan tea with salted butter. I didn't like it at first, but later the taste grew on me.
"This is not truly Tibetan tea," Tenzing pointed out.
"In Sola Khumbu, we use rancid yak butter. But you don't have yaks here . . . only ridiculously fat cows!"
Frankly, I was quite happy that there were no yaks in New Mexico. Ordinary salted butter was good enough for me!

É uma referência recorrente nos romances Discworld de Terry Pratchett:

Ladrão do Tempo (Discworld # 26):

'More rancid yak butter in that?'

'Please,' said Lu-Tze, holding out his cup.

Vigília Noturna (Discworld # 29):

'Cup of tea, commander?' said Sweeper cheerfully.

'I don't want any damn tea!' shouted Vimes, struggling to his feet.

Sweeper dropped a lump of rancid yak butter in the tea bowl beside him.

Poderia ser Escape from Kathmandu por Kim Stanley Robinson.

Aqui está um relance do Google Books na página 80, que fala sobre o chá de manteiga tibetana, que "tem um sabor pior do que parece", de acordo com o narrador:

Tibetan tea, you see, is not your ordinary Lipton's. To make it they start with a black liquid that is not made from tea leaves at all but from some kind of root, and it is so bitter you could use it for suturing. They pour a lot of salt into this brew, and stir it up, and then they dose it liberally with rancid yak butter, which melts and floats to the top.

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Poderia ser Red Dust por Paul McAuley? Não me lembro de quase nada da história agora, mas o chá com manteiga rançosa sempre ficou comigo. E há iaques também.

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Five hundred years after the Chinese conquered the Red Planet, the great work of terraforming is failing. The human-machine Consensus of Earth had persuaded the AI Emperor to follow the Golden Path into a vast virtual reality universe, leaving behind an ungoverned planet swept by hunger riots and the beginnings of civil war.

Enter Wei Lee, a lowly itinerant agricultural technician: rock 'n' roll fan, dupe, holy fool - and unlikely Messiah. After stumbling on an anarchist pilot hiding near the wreckage of her spacecraft, he's drawn into a revolutionary plot that has been spinning for decades. With the help of a ghost, the broadcasts of the King of the Cats, a Yankee yak herder, and a little Girl God, Lee travels across the badlands, swampy waterways and vast dust seas to a showdown at the summit of the biggest volcano in the Solar System. Not even the God-like Consensus can predict the outcome of his struggle to define his own destiny . . .