Tea Brick

This is a tea brick, which essentially is a compressed block of tea, an age old way to store and transport tea around the world.

Tea bricks are still used in many countries around the world, tea being part of the world’s collective culture for thousands of years. The story of tea starts in China when it is said a tea leaf fell into the Chinese emperors hot water, which he drank and thought was quite good, thus tea was born.

Tea is produced in many different countries, during the times of colonialism, Britain tried to control the Asian tea market and took tea to India where it is still grown today. Tea is grown in many regions of the world now, but it needs a warm mountainous region to be cultivated well.

In your first online session your Education Officer will introduce students to the object and get them thinking and talking about it.

You could follow that up with these activities from the ‘Object activity ideas’ pdf, on the Introduce your object page.

1. Would I lie to you?
2. Questioning and hypothesising
3. Developing vocabulary

We suggest you try these activities on the Get Creative page

1. Interesting object label.
2. Poetry and performance.
3. Design a poster.

Make a map.

Using tea leaves and water to stain a piece of paper to look old, make a treasure map. This map must include: x marks the spot where the treasure is, geological features, i. e. mountains, rivers and lakes, and lastly a trail to follow. Once you have completed the trail write a story about a hidden golden tea bag, why it was hidden, who by and when.

Museum name: The Dorman museum
Contact name: Sue Sedgwick
Phone number: 01642 358108
Email: susan_sedgwick@middlesbrough.gov.uk

Learning from home? This download is full of ways to explore this object for students who can’t be in school.

Literacy Loans Home Learning – Dorman Museum Tea Brick KS2