Tea and the Margaret Williamson Collection
MAA looks after at least 280 objects from Tibet and its surrounding Himalayan states, and 6,000 photographs donated by Margaret Williamson. But who was she and how did she acquire these objects?
25 April 2023
A sample of loose leaf ‘Russian tea’
A small sample of loose-leaf tea raises more questions than can be answered: is it Queen Mary tea or Russian? Was it produced in Britain, Russia, or as the catalogue record suggests, in Tibet?
21 March 2023
Brick Tea as a Form of Currency
In a previous blog post on this object, I pursued one of the clues found on its label to show that it was a product of the Russian brick tea trade in China. In this one, we look at how it functioned as currency.
20 December 2022
Russian Brick Tea Trade in Hankou, China
An encounter with a Russian monogram on a tea brick from China leads to a wider exploration of the industrial production of tea bricks by Russian factories in Hankou, and their transnational trade.
6 December 2022
