I say old brick, fancy a cuppa?

These days China tea usually arrives as loose leaves or in tea-bags. In the past, however, it came as solid bricks of compressed whole or finely ground black or green tea. To produce a tea brick, the ground or whole tea was first steamed, then placed into a press and compressed into a solid form, often with a design imprinted into the tea.

The newly formed tea bricks were then left to cure, dry, and age prior to being sold or traded. Tea bricks were preferred for trade well into the 19th century since they were more compact than loose leaf tea and were also less susceptible to physical damage incurred through transportation by sea or over land by caravans on the Ancient tea route.

This brick, from The University of Aberdeen's Museum Collections was made in 1885. The tea cup is part of a tea service bought by my mother with her first wage packet in the late 1920s. It was her pride and joy and it has spent its life safely tucked up, first in in her sideboard and now in ours. This is the first time that I have ever seen it used in anger!