Tea bricks pop up from time to time. They can be quite decorative, and should remain as decoration, as they are frequently stale. Virginia Mescher wrote the following about brick tea. She has a mission to correct misconceptions about brick tea in the 18th and 19th centuries, so the following is posted with her permission.
"There were a number of compressed teas produced in China. Brick tea made for Russia (higher quality tea that was placed into molds compressed under extreme pressure and dried or coarse tea leaves and dust were pressed and dried. When consumed this tea was infused.) and those made for Tibet and Mongolia (fermented leaves were steamed and mixed with glutinous rice water and other binding substances and pressed into molds. This type of tea was usually boiled with butter, salt and grain which formed some a type of soup.)
I have numerous primary source accounts from 19th century sources that mention tea bricks as being only consumed in Russia, Mongolia and Tibet. These sources date from 1804 through the 1890sAnother type of tea headed for Tibet was baled. The bales were only used to transport the tea (weeds and tea plants were cut together) to the factories were the tea was processed. The bales weighed between 90 to 160 pounds depending upon the shape. As far a I know the bales were only used for transport to Tibet, not to the western world as there were not tea processors in the west in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Cake tea is what we call puerh tea. It is an aged tea that is made into flat and circular cakes about 8" in diameter. It was used mostly as a medicine and a digestive. I don't recall ever seeing a mention of it being imported into the western world. It was probably brought over in the 19th century when the Chinese were brought over as laborers.
Tablet tea was made of fine tea dust and each weighed a few ounces each. The dust was placed in small molds and pressed. There is some evidence that some of these were made for the European market but I've not seen any mention of them.
Ball tea was tea that was compressed into a ball to protect it from changes in humidity and other problems. Caper tea is another name for this type of tea. These balls differed in size and could be quite large. I also did not find any evidence that this type of tea was exported to the western world.
In my research on compressed teas, I found something very interesting; in all the information and directions on making tea, there was nothing about how to prepare tea bricks (the hard ones need to be cut with a hatchet) or any other compressed tea. It would seem if the compressed tea was common enough to be imported to the colonies that we would see some instructions on how to prepare it.
I'm not saying that I have read every book and diary written that contained information about tea. A sea captain or traveler could have brought back a compressed tea as a novelty and prepared it but I really can't see a lady serving a portion of brick tea in the Mongolian style.
Until the 1840s, tea was only produced in China and there were many types of tea produced. (Japan had been cultivating tea for centuries but due to their isolation policy tea was not exported until after 1859.) Native Assam tea had been cultivated in that region of India since 1815 but it was not recognized until 1831; the Assam tea did not taste good and is usually used in blends rather than used alone. Robert Fortune, in 1848, was commissioned by the East India to sneak into China and obtain tea seeds and learn how the Chinese processed their tea. The tea was to be planted in the Himalayan area of India which was comparable to the best tea growing region of China. Fortune was successful and the Darjeeling Tea Company was established in 1860.
Tea was not grown commercially in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) until 1867 and not exported to the west (London) until 1873. "