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Brick tea - a way to store tea for the long term

8K views 19 replies 8 participants last post by  DKR 
#1 ·
Yes,a brick of tea. Very old school to boot.



Both black and green tea are sold in 'brick' form - in 'full' (2.2 pounds) and in a 'Half' brick (about 1 pound). It pays to shop as the price varies by type (Green or Black) and by vendor.

A full brick measures 7.5" x 9.5" x 15/16" inches.

Preparing this tea is 'just like' loose leaf tea. AFTER you have grated about a teaspoon, put in a cup with 8 oz of very hot (190 -200F) water.

Once the tea has colored to taste, add another 8oz of cold water to settle the tea leaves.

Enjoy.

Many of the vendor sites offer some bits of the history of brick tea - these were once used a currency in the past.. While often sold as a curiosity - brick tea is actually quite good.

Warning, cutting or grating brick tea for consumption can be a bit if a chore, and not for folks in a hurry.

Just the same, if you are looking for LTS tea, this may offer an additional choice for dedicated tea drinkers.



Another type of brick tea is Pu-erh. It is not as compressed and thus easier to flake for use. Most sites that sell this type of blocked or brick tea also have directions for brewing.

I hope this post will be enough to motivate you to at least do some research on your own to see if this type of tea could be part of not only your storage program, but part of your daily diet.

See also - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_brick

http://blog.tranquiltuesdays.com/post/43610971944/brick-tea-money-at-the-smithsonian-during-our (pics of 'tea money')

http://www.oliverpluff.com/tea-and-coffee-trade-in-the-american-colonies/ a bit if US history with tea.
 
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#2 ·
Brick tea is actually all pu-erh tea--it's just pu-erh pressed into a brick. It does store practically forever, but that is because it is fermented and totally oxidized. It is also somewhat of an acquired taste--it is not a replacement for a nice cup of jasmine or Earl Grey.

But if you like it, yep, pu-erh does store for years, in or out of bricks.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/08/what-is-puerh-tea-where-to-buy.html

If you don't care for pu-erh, then your best bet for storing other teas is buying it in nitrogen-flushed vacuum cans like these:
http://www.troisgtea.com/teaproducts_teaintin.html
or storing your tea of choice in foil-wrapped jars with oxygen absorbers. (Whole-leaf teas can get a bit beat up in mylar bags and are also best stored in small containers for freshness, but mylar is, of course, another option.)
 
#3 · (Edited)
I can second this notion and add testimony as a pleased prepper. I have collected a whole lot of these tea bricks in my preps, and agree that they make a fantastic prep with almost infinite shelf life (most of the ones we got were bricked in the 1980's, the older they are the more you pay, like fine wine), and would be worth their weight in bitcoin if SHTF:D:. They taste just like any other tea in my opinion, and it makes for awesome iced tea as well. Also, a little goes a long ways.

We also tried out the small bricks (about as big around as a quarter) that come in a wide variety of tea flavors, and we love them and have taken to using them on the daily in our household.





 
#4 ·
I have used brick tea, and having to chop the stuff with an axe, wrapping it in a linen towel and them smashing it with a hammer is a royal pain. I very much prefer a Ceylon BOP broken very fine, that produces a lovely dark cup with a good body that is mellow and brisk. This was our preferred tea in the mess. It holds up well to the addition of milk and is typical of the type of tea favored for chai in India or breakfast teas in Britain. I receive a kilo each year for Christmas from a missionary I help support over there, but you thanks to the Internet can buy the same tea as served on Royal Navy ships for about $8/pound. http://www.sfherb.com/Ceylon-Tea--1-Lb_p_60.html If you prefer China Gunpowder or Earl Grey they also have the real thing elsewhere on the site.
 
#5 ·
I have used brick tea, and having to chop the stuff with an axe, wrapping it in a linen towel and them smashing it with a hammer is a royal pain. I very much prefer a Ceylon BOP broken very fine, that produces a lovely dark cup with a good body that is mellow and brisk.
It's kind of like people who have never drunk anything but instant coffee, so actually prefer the taste of instant to fresh brewed. If all you know of tea is iced sweet tea and Lipton's tea bags, cheap black brick tea is likely to suit you fine. For the rest of us, it doesn't really matter how well it stores, we don't want to be stuck with nothing but instant coffee or bricks of pu-erh. :)
 
#7 ·
Aren't we touchy. It's not a question of superiority, just a question of what people are used to and therefore like. If you like brick tea, you like brick tea. So store brick tea.

It doesn't matter to me in the least how many beans are in the canned chili, but I don't enjoy instant coffee or brick tea. Since both are pretty much drunk for enjoyment, doesn't make sense for me to store a lot of either--if all I want is caffeine, I can just store caffeine, which has a very long shelf life indeed, and either just swallow it or add it to boiled pine needles if I want a hot caffeinated drink. I could put away the caffeine equivalent of 22 years of 2 cups of coffee a day for less than $4.00/year and store it all in a half dozen pint jars. I'd enjoy it as much as the tea bricks, it would cost less, it would take less space, and it would store even better. I don't do it for the same reason I don't store tea bricks, but if just deep storage of a caffeinated beverage were my goal, that would make more sense--just add it to whatever could be found to drink, including plain water.

As the above poster noted, decent loose leaf tea isn't necessarily expensive bought in bulk, and there are ways of storing that which keep it pretty well. I like loose-leaf tea. So I store loose-leaf tea. Neither your solution nor mine adds much to the larder in the way of actual nutrition, and there are cheaper ways to stock the chemical cabinet, so I expect we are both wasting a little space in our larders, deep or shallow, on pure frivolous enjoyment.
 
#8 ·
Aren't we touchy. It's not a question of superiority, just a question of what people are used to and therefore like. If you like brick tea, you like brick tea.

It doesn't matter to me in the least how many beans are in the canned chili, but I don't enjoy instant coffee or brick tea. Since both are pretty much drunk for enjoyment, doesn't make sense for me to store a lot of either--if all I want is caffeine, I could just store caffeine, which has a very long shelf life indeed. As the above poster noted, decent loose leaf tea isn't necessarily expensive bought in bulk, and there are ways of storing that that keep it pretty well. So that's what I store.
Alright, whatever. Maybe I am just touchy.:D: I don't begrudge anyone their passions,and I've had my own moments of feeling irked or superior when others can't see that they are missing something I find significant. Also, I have a damaged sense of smell from H2S gas exposure, so my pallet for gourmet subtleties are literally diminished.

My point still applies, the validity of prepping important commodities like tea bricks is a completely different discussion than whether there is better tea to be found in the world.

Good day to you. (And thanks for the help in my potato thread)..:thumb:
 
#12 ·
I've never had brick tea but many of the teas I like are black teas which are also completely oxidized. I had always heard it called fermented. I also like some of the partially oxidized oolongs. I'm not a huge fan of green tea, actually. But there are so many kinds that I still haven't tried, so who knows. I am curious about brick tea though if it tastes similar to black tea.
 
#13 ·
back when I was doing the black powder mountain man thing, brick tea was the bomb. Historically correct, easy to pack and a great drink on a "cold and frosty morning in November"... (extra points if you recognize that last bit.)

I will probably pick up a brick for next summer when I give the PCT a go.
 
#15 ·
If that's the essence of Earl Grey, I would say yes. Those little dollop sized bricks I linked come in many flavors including jasmin, which I liked, so I started experimenting. I've added lavender, cinnamon, sarsaparilla, anise, lemon and all kinds of stuff to the basic black tea brick and enjoyed most of them.

But we've already established I'm not exactly a food critic, I can't "taste the paper" of a tea-bag. Some flavors I enjoy might seem brutish to someone with a more complex pallet- Rattatouille I am not. :D: (but root beer tea is the bomb!!!!)

(Also, I just purchased 1000x 200mg caffeine capsules for my preps- thanks for that tip NY-Min, those should have some value if the esS ever acHes the efF.)
 
#18 ·
I believe they started making the black fast-industrial-process pu-erh in the 1970s, so hard to say what you've got. If it was black when it arrived, though, and didn't cost a fortune, I'd say industrial process.

You could go broke buying the really good aged stuff even if you can find a dealer you trust--it's like rare bottles of vintage French wine. Some people will pay exorbitant sums, and like old wines, sometimes on stuff so old it's long past its peak, or even likely undrinkable.
https://www.weirdasianews.com/2009/11/02/chinese-puerh-tea-cost-10000/
https://www.essenceoftea.com/blog/2013/11/20/the-unstoppable-rise-of-puerh-tea/

Quality has been downhill in recent decades unless you are bidding on the antique stuff or have personal contacts in Yunnan that can provide you with some better quality older stock, and there have been some wild price fluctuations.
https://www.teasenz.com/chinese-tea/pu-erh-tea-price.html
My father brought some pu-erh back from Yunnan from his trip to China in the 1980s that was a gift and supposedly very high-quality 20-year-old stuff. It was interesting, but not something I had any strong yen to change over to as my daily tea. I appreciated the silk Chinese oriental he had the poor guides haul around after him for half the trip much more. :)

Pu-erh not being my cup of tea, so to speak, I really haven't paid much attention, but if you have older stock, hang onto it. You are unlikely to be able to buy as good again or for as good a price. Like so much else in the modern world, they just don't make it like they used to. :(
 
#20 ·
As a side note for tea drinkers. If you enjoy more than a cup or two (6oz or more) each day - esp Green tea - ensure that you make a note of this when seeing your health care provider.

Some folks have issues with iron uptake from drinking tea and others have noted issues with B-12 uptake as well.

The doc should know this, esp if running tests as the results may be skewed by your tea drinking.

Merry Christmas to you all.
 
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