This is what the tea that was dumped into the Boston Harbor would have looked like. In the 1700s, tea was compressed into planks; a plank this size could last a person roughly a year. They would be bought in sections, and small slivers would be shaved off into the kettle every time somebody wanted to make a cup of tea.
this is also fucking neat but someone censored my fucking swearing so i have to fucking put it back in this thread like who the fuck does that kind of shit and can i throw their fucking tea in the ocean for it
I’ve reblogged this before, but actually it’s NOT what the tea was like at all.
This small glass bottle contains tea leaves gathered on the shore of
Dorchester Neck, across the harbor from Boston, on 17 December 1773, the
morning after the Boston Tea Party. This is one of five relics of the
Boston Tea Party (including tea caddies said to have been emptied at the
Tea Party, and a china punch bowl from which participants are said to
have drunk) in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
This was added before my bit by another poster, @ladysmatter , as well:
I hate to be the person who debunks ‘cool facts’…
Historically,
tea was sold in several different forms. Tea was pressed into bricks
for trade in and around China in times past, but brick tea was NOT
imported to Europe and America in the 18th century. The tea chests
dumped into Boston harbor were full of loose leaf tea, just like you can
buy today if you are feeling too posh for teabags. Read MUCH more about
it at this History Myths Debunked blog post and at the Boston Tea Party Museum’s website.
ruby-dear archive 
