What is a Tea Brick?
Centuries ago the Chinese, who created the earliest banking system with coins and paper bank notes, found that their currency had no value when trading with people in far away Mongolia and Tibet. Their solution to this problem was to turn their most valued product, tea, into bricks. The tea bricks were even scored so they could be broken to make change. The tea was pressed into molds and were much easier to carry. Today, these sculpted tea bricks with traditional Chinese motifs, are mainly used for decoration as the quality of the tea is very poor. They make great tea trivets or wall hangings and are the perfect gift for tea lovers. To maintain your tea brick, apply a thin coat of clear lacquer to protect it from humidity and to keep the corners and edges from crumbling.
