For tea cakes and bricks, I suggest you pry them open with a tea knife.

The tea knife should be inserted from the edge, as close as possible to the upper surface of the tea cake or brick, and the angle should be parallel to the cake surface or brick surface. Pry the tea leaves loose with a little force, and then insert them from adjacent places to avoid the tea leaves being broken.

For tightly pressed tea bricks or cakes, they can also be slowly peeled off from the surface to pursue the integrity of tea strips.

Yanfeng tea ceremony