Tea bricks are dried tea compressed into easily transportable and storable blocks. In the past those were usually square in form, but now they are most commonly disc-shaped.

These bricks, in a store in Kunming, are of the brand Ma Bang Cha (马帮茶), literally ‘Horses Assisting the Tea’, which alludes to Cha Ma Dao, i.e. the ancient ‘Tea Horse Road’ (fig.).