Tea...?

In Shigatse, we bought a brick of tea from a local stall, you know, wanting to be all "cultural". Wrapped in yellow paper, it was highly compressed, dark, matted vegetable. I broke off a chunk for each of us, and on pouring the water noted the black nature of the water. It was stemmy and grassy, impossible to drink as the sticks caught in your throat. It tasted of grass.
They'd sold us a brick of yak fodder. Who were we to say it wasn't also to be used as tea?