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Unpacking the Collection 9

By: Raewyn Passmore


December 11, 2018

Tea brick currency

Tee, thé, cha, tsài, tè, teo, chai, teh, chay—these are all words for the beverage made from leaves of the evergreen shrub Camelia sinensis. Wars have been fought to control its trade and gifts of it have been made to ensure peace. It has even been used as currency. In central and northern Asia, bricks of tea were a unit of value and medium of exchange well into the 20th century.

China had a monopoly on the tea trade right up until the 19th century and, as the taste for tea spread, it became an increasingly valuable commodity. It was exchanged for horses in Mongolia and Tibet. Russian caravans travelled for months across Siberia to trade furs for it.

Tea in the form of bricks was durable, easy to pack and, under the right conditions, could be preserved indefinitely. At factories in China’s Sichuan Province, freshly picked leaves were steamed, pounded into powder and then packed into moulds. The bricks were then dried or baked in the sun to harden.

brick of tea with Chinese symbols

The characters tell us that the brick was made by the China Tea Industrial Corporation at the Zhao-Li-Qiao Tea Brick Factory in Hubei Province. Tea brick, China, mid 20th century

The value of a brick depended on both the quality of the tea and the distance it had travelled from China. A French missionary travelling in Tibet in the 19th century wrote, “men bargain by stipulating so many bricks or packets (4 bricks) of tea.” Workmen and servants were paid in bricks of tea and a horse cost 20 packets. At the beginning of the 20th century, Western adventurers in remote parts of Mongolia and Tibet found that they couldn’t use gold or silver to buy supplies, but could only use tea.

brick of tea showing scoring for 16 sections

A very practical money, each tea brick was scored so that sections could be broken off for change, small purchases, or a quick pot of tea. Tea brick, China, mid 20th century

The tea brick shown here was produced in the People’s Republic of China sometime in the mid-20th century. It is in the Bank of Canada Museum’s National Currency Collection and can be seen in Zone 4 of our main gallery along with many curious and fascinating objects that have been used as money.

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Content type(s): Blog posts

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The Museum Blog

March 30, 2016

Museum Reconstruction - Part 4

By: Graham Iddon


It seems a pretty strange building but now it has a solid roof, glass walls and doors. Doors? Ah, there’s your clue. It’s no skateboard park—it’s the entrance portico for the Bank of Canada Museum.
Content type(s): Blog posts
March 15, 2016

Decoding E-Money II

By: Graham Iddon


This has been an extremely challenging exhibition to develop. We are taking, for us, the unprecedented step of interpreting something that is not only current but continually changing.
Content type(s): Blog posts
February 18, 2016

New Acquisitions

By: David Bergeron


In late April of 2015, the National Currency Collection finally succeeded in acquiring a Spanish gold cob—famous in legends and tales of pirates and their buried treasures!
Content type(s): Blog posts
December 17, 2015

What’s in Your Stocking?

By: Graham Iddon


Every prop in the holiday drama generally has some sort of symbolic meaning—evergreen trees: life in the dead of winter, holly: Christ’s crown of thorns, the dreidel: Jewish resistance to oppression. Money, on the other hand, only seems to symbolize itself.
Content type(s): Blog posts
November 10, 2015

Money from Space

Do you notice anything peculiar about this bank note? It’s blue; it’s denominated as 5-dollar; it has handsome portraits of Sir Wilfred Laurier on it…hold on a minute!
Content type(s): Blog posts
October 29, 2015

Royal Canadian Numismatic Association

By: Raewyn Passmore


Nova Scotia has long been a centre of trade that connected Europe, New England and the West Indies. Following the American Revolution, Halifax became the primary British port in North America and a hub of financial activity.
Content type(s): Blog posts
September 28, 2015

Unpacking the Collection 3

By: David Bergeron


Before banks were established in remote regions of Canada, paying employees involved shipping currency long distances into wild and often lawless locations. The alternative to this risky enterprise was for the company to issue its own money. Called scrip…
Content type(s): Blog posts
September 15, 2015

The 2015 Commemorative $20 Bank Note Revealed

By: Graham Iddon


It’s a historic day for us as well. It isn’t every day that the Bank of Canada introduces a new commemorative note.
Content type(s): Blog posts
August 19, 2015

Unpacking the Collection 2

By: David Bergeron


During 1952, Comfort produced a number of pencil and watercolour design models for the face of the new notes. Some were updates of the traditional style while others were radically modern treatments.
Content type(s): Blog posts
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