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Compressed tea, called tea bricks, tea cakes or tea lumps, and tea nuggets according to the shape and size, are blocks of whole or finely ground black tea, green tea, or post-fermented tea leaves that have been packed in molds and pressed into block form. This was the most commonly produced and used form of tea in ancient China prior to the Ming Dynasty. Although tea bricks are less commonly produced in modern times, many post-fermented teas, such as pu-erh, are still commonly found in bricks, discs, and other pressed forms. Tea bricks can be made into beverages like tea or eaten as food, and were also used in the past as a form of currency.
Tea bricks are still currently manufactured for drinking, as in pu-erh teas, as well as for souvenirs and novelty items, though most compressed teas produced in modern times are usually made from whole leaves. The compressed tea can take various traditional forms, many of them still being produced. A dome-shaped nugget of 100 g (standard size) is simply called tuóchá (沱茶), which is translated several ways, sometimes as "bird's nest tea" or "bowl tea". A small dome-shaped nugget with a dimple underneath just enough to make one pot or cup of tea is called a xiǎo tuóchá (茶]]; the first word meaning 'small') which usually weighs 3 g–5 g. A larger piece around 357 g, which may be a disc with a dimple, is called bǐngchá (饼茶, literally 'biscuit tea' or 'cake tea'). A large, flat, square brick is called fāngchá (方茶, literally 'square tea').
To produce a tea brick, ground or whole tea is first steamed, then placed into one of a number of types of press and compressed into a solid form. Such presses may leave an intended imprint on the tea, such as an artistic design or simply the pattern of the cloth with which the tea was pressed. Many powdered tea bricks are moistened with rice water in pressing to assure that the tea powder sticks together. The pressed blocks of tea are then left to dry in storage until a suitable degree of moisture has evaporated.
In modern times bricks of pu-erh type teas are flaked, chipped, or broken and directly steeped after thorough rinsing; the process of toasting, grinding, and whisking to make tea from tea bricks has become uncommon.
Tteokcha (), also called byeongcha (), was the most commonly produced and consumed type of tea in pre-modern Korea. Pressed tea made into the shape of yeopjeon, the coins with holes, was called doncha (), jeoncha (), or cheongtaejeon (). Borim-cha () or Borim-baengmo-cha (), named after its birthplace, the Borim temple in Jangheung County, South Jeolla Province, is a popular tteokcha variety.
The tea mixed with tsampa is called Pah. Individual portions of the mixture are kneaded in a small bowl, formed into balls and eaten. Some cities of the Fukui prefecture in Japan have food similar to tsampa, where concentrated tea is mixed with grain flour. However, the tea may or may not be made of tea bricks.
In parts of Mongolia and central Asia, a mixture of ground tea bricks, grain flours and boiling water is eaten directly. It has been suggested that tea eaten whole provides needed roughage normally lacking in the diet.
Tea bricks for Tibet were mainly produced in the area of Ya'an (formerly Yachou-fu) in Sichuan province. The bricks were produced in five different qualities and valued accordingly. The kind of brick which was most commonly used as currency in the late 19th and early 20th century was that of the third quality which the Tibetans called brgyad pa ('eighth'), because at one time it was worth eight (standard silver coin of Tibet which weighs about 5.4 grams) in Lhasa. Bricks of this standard were also exported by Tibet to Bhutan and Ladakh.Wolfgang Bertsch, 2006 The Use of Tea Bricks as Currency among the Tibetans (- Der Gebrauch von Teeziegeln als Zahlungsmittel bei den Tibetern" Der Primitivgeldsammler), Europäische Vereinigung zum Erforschen, Sammeln und Bewahren von ursprünglichen und außergewöhnlichen Geldformen (European Association for the Research, Collection and Preservation of Original and Curious Money), No. 75
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