Tea brick

Tea was first used for medicinal purposes.
It is mentioned more often from the 4th century AD, and was soon the subject of frequent trade.
Initially, wild tea plants were felled and stripped of their leaves, before, to fulfil a growing need, plantations were created in SICHUAN in around 350 AD, by acclimatising wild tea plants from YUNNAN. 
Tea leaves were then shaped into a kind of cake (or brick) and roasted until they became reddish.
To use them, a corner of the brick was softened by heating it, then the pieces were pulverised between two sheets of paper. When the water began to simmer, salt was added. As the water began to boil, the tea was added, and finally a ladle of cold water, then it was left to reduce until it produced a thick, brownish liquid. (The word “soup” was used to designate this beverage, because ingredients with a pronounced flavour such as onions, ginger, orange peel, mint, garlic etc. were added to the water. Bowls were used to serve it, originally made of wood.)

Under the Tang dynasty, (618-907 AD), tea gradually became perceived as a recreational rather than medical beverage.. The period following the monsoon was dedicated to manufacturing tea bricks. The tea pickers arrived on the mountain slopes in the early morning, and picking ended at midday so that the harvest could be processed on the same day. The leaves were first crushed to extract the active components, then roasted, powdered and compressed into a paste that was pressed into metal moulds. After hardening, the blocks were tied, wrapped and carried in baskets suspended on either end of a pole, to all subjects of the great TANG empire.
In the 6th century, the plantations were extended to the south-west and centre of China to meet constantly increasing demand.

In 780, the Chinese government attempted to impose the first tax on the precious commodity. This measure raised such an outcry that it was only acted upon 15 years later! In the same year, LU YU published his “The Classic of Tea” (CHAKING), a work in three volumes that covers all aspects of tea (from cultivation to consumption methods).
This book was commissioned by a group of merchants seeking publicity, and in it LU YU describes three forms in which tea was presented: as leaves, powder or in the form of a brick which was ground before being boiled with the water. In the TANG period, this decoction remained the most widespread way of drinking tea. Thanks to LU YU, the ambassador of compressed tea, the drink entered into poetry and was considered as one of the elegant distractions of the period.
Poems reveal the refined atmosphere that surrounded the tasting of teas among scholars of the period. Here is such a poem, from an anthology composed in 827:

'It is not unpleasant / To compose verses / While one hears / The grinding of a good tea / The interest awakes / And one then desires / To hear the elegant / To pinch a lute. "

As a son of southern China, LU YU showed the greatest disdain for anything that deviated even a little from his “cake of tea”. And he took care to warn us accordingly:

“Sometimes ingredients such as onions or ginger are added. Such beverages are worth no more than the rinsings of gutters or drains.”

Unfortunately this way of preparing tea became widespread.

Bricks of compressed tea began to act as currency, and far from being devalued from one province to another they increased in value as they moved away from the regions of production. Tea bricks became an export item:

• To Mongolia (by the route that linked northern China to Mongolia).
  The Mongols were great consumers of these bricks of tea that China also sent to Tibet and Russia. They were manufactured with residues from the production of high quality black teas and green teas; damaged, too old leaves, stems and twigs, and these were heated with steam before being compressed in the form of flat bricks weighing one to two kilos, embellished with traditional motifs printed in relief. To prepare the tea, it was sufficient to scrape off a few flakes (roughly three tablespoons), grind them and mix them with boiling water (approximately one litre). To this a spoonful of melted animal fat was added (yak, beef, sheep or camel). This was then salted according to taste.
  To prepare a tea broth: The Mongols added cow’s, sheep’s or camel’s milk (1/4 litre), 50 to 100 g of flour, fried in advance in the fat and finally half a glass of cereal (rice or wheat). This was then cooked for 10-15 minutes. The Mongols added very little salt and sometimes none at all if they added cereals.
  Several travellers from the 19th century have recounted their experiences with Mongolian tea. In 1864, Count Henry Russell-Killough wrote in “16000 leagues through Asia and Oceania”:

The Mongols were more civilised than those we found later, and cleaner – in other words they did not die without being washed. As for their drink, it was always this terrible compound called brick tea, which they used as a currency, a brick being worth 24 sous. In the solid state, this tea resembles a piece of tobacco. In the liquid state, one can only compare it to water from the Mississippi mixed with oil, sheep fat and salt. It is claimed that it consists of the rotted leaves of the tea plant, well agglutinated together with the blood of young bulls”.

• Towards Tibet (by the route linking China with the south-west of Tibet).
  According to Tibetan tradition, tea was imported for the first time under the reign of Songsten Gampo – in other words in the 7th century AD. The caravans of yaks took three and a half months to carry the precious bricks of tea along a route 1500 km long, sometimes reaching more than 5000 m high.
  The preparation of this tea is recounted by Alexandra David-Néel, who states:

We prepare the tea in the Tibetan fashion – that is to say that after having being boiled, it is then transferred in a wooden churn (gugurtchaï) a metre long. Salt and yak butter are added and the whole is mixed, the Tibetans raising and lowering a wooden rod ending in a disk that fits perfectly into the cylinder of the churn. The foodstuffs, long stirred, combine until a complete emulsion is achieved. The Tibetans thus obtain a highly energising drink, in which in addition they soak grilled barley flour (tsampa), of which they make balls”. 

Under the SONG Dynasty (960-1279), tea was subject to a state monopoly, serving as a treasure and currency for the empire; in the form of bricks it acted as a currency and the Emperor forced taxpayers to pay their contributions using tea bricks.
The habit of adding salt to the tea disappeared in China but continues up to the present day in Tibet and Mongolia. In the late 11th century, the bricks of tea which were first bartered with the Mongols for the valuable horses of the steppes were offered in tribute to the nomadic tribes of the borders so that they ceased their incursions into China. In 1044 AD, the SONGs paid 30,000 pounds of tea to the XIAS to limit their incursions.

The SONG Dynasty sounded the death knell of the use of brick tea in China. From then on, tea would be consumed in the form of a green powder whisked into foam. The SONG “School of whipped tea” will replace that of the TANG “School of boiled tea”.