Tea Brick

Lyrics

[Intro]
Not metal.
Not paper.
Not a promise.
Just a brick.
Hard as slate, dark as earth.
Smells of smoke and long roads.

[Verse 1]
They swept the floors in Yunnan.
Leaves and dust and stems.
Pressed it all together with river water,
sometimes flour.
Sometimes, for flavor and for binding,
the blood of an ox,
the dung of a yak.
Pressed under stone weights for a week
until it was one thing.
A block you could build a house with.
If you had enough of them.

[Chorus]
This was the wallet that fed you back.
The currency you could brew in a pot,
whisk with butter and salt.
This was the coin you could crumble and smoke
when the sun went down over the steppe.
This was the bank note you could boil
to soothe a child's cough.
A hard-earned wage
you could eat.

[Verse 2]
They lashed them to the sides of yaks.
Up the Chamagudao, the Tea-Horse Road.
Two thousand miles of switchbacks and ice.
A fortune swaying in the thin air.
In Lhasa, in a tent smelling of smoke and wool,
you'd break a corner off.
A clean snap.
This much for a horse.
This much for a sable fur from Siberia.
This much for a story from a man you just met.

[Chorus]
This was the wallet that fed you back.
The currency you could brew in a pot,
whisk with butter and salt.
This was the coin you could crumble and smoke
when the sun went down over the steppe.
This was the bank note you could boil
to soothe a child's cough.
A hard-earned wage
you could eat.

[Bridge]
And then the silver came.
Small, bright circles with a stranger's face.
Clean.
So very clean.
They clinked in a pouch, a pleasing sound.
But try chewing on a silver coin when the winter bites.
Try brewing a potion from a paper mark.
The new money, it only knew one trick.
It only knew how to be spent.

[Outro]
A thousand years on the road.
A brick of tea.
Stamped with the seal of a forgotten emperor.
In a museum now, under glass.
Still smells of smoke.
Still smells of the road.
Still... a little hungry.