Compressed tea

Compressed tea is a tea variety developed from green, black or post-fermented tea. Crude tea is steamed, compressed and hardened into various shapes such as bricks, discs or bowls. Convenient for transport and storage, this form is mainly supplied to ethnic minorities living in the border areas of China. In Tibet, people break pieces of tea from tea bricks, boil them overnight in water, and then mix the tea infusion with yak butter and salt to make yak butter tea, a staple of Tibetan cuisine.

(China.org.cn by Li Xiao August 2, 2011)