A wave of rare incense is wafted from the tea-room; it is the summons which bids the guests to enter. One by one they advance and take their places. In the tokonoma hangs a kakemono—a wonderful writing by an ancient monk dealing with the evanescence of all earthly things. The singing kettle. . . sounds like some cicada pouring forth his woes to departing summer.- Okakura Kakuzo Book of Tea (1906) Describing the last Cha-no-yu by Rikiu, a great tea master

 

A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water. - Eleanor Roosevelt.

 

Afternoon Tea should be provided; fresh supplies, with thin bread-and-butter, fancy pastries, cakes, etc., being brought in as other guests arrive. --Mrs. Beeton, The Book of Household Management

 

All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes.  ~George Orwell, "A Nice Cup of Tea"

 

Another novelty is the tea-party, an extraordinary meal in that, being offered to persons that have already dined well, it supposes neither appetite nor thirst, and has no object but distraction, no basis but delicate enjoyment. ~Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste

 

As the centerpiece of a cherished ritual, it's a talisman against the chill of winter, a respite from the ho-hum routine of the day.  ~Sarah Engler, "Tea Up," Real Simple magazine, February 2006

 

Better to be deprived of food for three days, than tea for one.- Ancient Chinese Proverb

 

Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea.  ~Author Unknown

 

Christopher Robin was home by this time, because it was the afternoon, and he was so glad to see them that they stayed there until very nearly tea-time, and then they had a Very Nearly tea, which is one you forget about afterwards, and hurried on to Pooh Corner, so as to see Eeyore before it was too late to have a Proper Tea with Owl.-  A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

 

Come and share a pot of tea,

My home is warm and my friendship's free. --Emilie Barnes

 

Come little cottage girl, you seem to want my cup of tea;

And will you take a little cream? Now tell the truth to me!  --Barry Pain, “The Poets at Tea, Wordsworth”

 

Come, oh come, ye tea-thirsty restless ones—the kettle boils, bubbles and sings, musically.- Rabindranath Tagore

 

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. ~Thich Nat Hahn

 

Drinking a daily cup of tea will surely starve the apothecary. - Chinese Proverb

 

Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage. ~Catherine Douzel

 

Ecstasy is a glass full of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth.- Alexander Puskin

 

Eyes begging. Tail wagging. Waiting for crumbs to drop. That's my best friend at tea. Much more fun than my Aunt who sits and stares earnestly! - Unknown

 

 

Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane. ~Honoré de Balzac

 

Harry found the [tea]... seemed to burn away a little of the fear fluttering in his chest. ~J.K. Rowling

 

I always fear that creation will expire before teatime. ~Sydney Smith

 

I am in no way interested in immortality, but only in the taste of tea. - Lu T’ung

 

“I can just imagine myself sitting down at the head of the table and pouring out the tea," said Anne, shutting her eyes ecstatically, "and asking Diana if she takes sugar!  I know she doesn't but of course I'll ask her just as if I didn't know."-- Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

 

I got nasty habits; I take tea at three. ~Mick Jagger

 

I have never tasted tea like this. It is smooth, pungent, and instantly addicting...This is from Grand Auntie, my mother explains... she told me if I buy the cheap tea, then I am saying that my whole life has not been worth something better...If I buy just a little, then I am saying that my lifetime is almost over, so she bought enough tea for another lifetime. - Amy Tan, The Kitchen God’s Wife

 

Iced tea is too pure and natural a creation not to have been invented as soon as tea, ice, and hot weather crossed paths. ~John Egerton

 

Iced tea may not have as much wisdom as hot tea, but in the summer better a cool and refreshed dullard than a steamy sweat-drenched sage - leave sagacity to the autumn! ~Linda Solegato

 

If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty. ~Japanese Proverb

 

If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you. ~William Gladstone, 1865

 

In my own hands I hold a bowl of tea; I see all of nature represented in its green color. Closing my eyes I find green mountains and pure water within my own heart. Silently sitting alone and drinking tea, I feel these become a part of me.- Soshitsu Sen, Grand Master XIV,  Urasenke School of Tea

 

Is there no Latin word for Tea?  Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone. ~Hilaire Belloc

 

It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs.  We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so.  It dictates to us our emotions, our passions.  After eggs and bacon it says, "Work!"  After beefsteak and porter, it says, "Sleep!"  After a cup of tea (two spoonfuls for each cup, and don't let it stand for more than three minutes), it says to the brain, "Now rise, and show your strength.  Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature, and into life:  spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!" ~Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

 

Kissing is like drinking tea through a tea-strainer; you’re always thirsty afterwards.- Old Chinese saying

 

Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. ~Henry Fielding, "Love in Several Masques"

 

Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.- Okakura Kakuzo  Book of Tea (1906)

 

My experience...convinced me that tea was better than brandy, and during the last six months in Africa I took no brandy, even when sick taking tea instead. ~Theodore Roosevelt

 

My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody. --Wilkie Collines, The Woman in White

 

Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cozy, doesn't try it on.  ~Billy Connolly

 

O' peppermint tea -

two delights per sip

as steamy hot as passion

cool as a wintry lake dip ~Astrid Alauda

 

Our trouble is that we drink too much tea.  I see in this the slow revenge of the Orient, which has diverted the Yellow River down our throats. ~J.B. Priestley

 

Polly put the kettle on, we'll all have tea. ~Charles Dickens

 

“Poor Mrs. Benefer," Heather murmured. "Well, a nice cup of tea and she'll be right as rain."

"Oh, puh-leeze, Heather.  A nice cup of tea, indeed.  A nice cup of tea, two Prozac, and sleep for a week, maybe..." ~C.C. Benison, Death at Sandringham House

 

Remember the tea kettle - it is always up to its neck in hot water, yet it still sings! ~Author Unknown

 

She had that brand of pragmatism that would find her the first brewing tea after Armageddon. ~ Clive Barker

 

So I must rise at early dawn, as busy as can be,

to get my daily labor done, and pluck the leafy tea.- Ballad of the Tea Pickers” Le Yih,  Early Ch’ing Dynasty, 1644

 

Stands the Church clock at ten to three?

And is there honey still for tea? ~Rupert Brooke, "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester," 1912

 

Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company. ~Author Unknown

 

Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice very earnestly.

"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more." ~Lewis Carroll,Alice in Wonderland

 

Tea does our fancy aid,

Repress those vapours which the head invade

And keeps that palace of the soul serene. ~Edmund Waller

 

Tea does our fancy aid,

Repress those vapours which the head invade

And keeps that palace of the soul serene. ~Edmund Waller, "Of Tea"

 

Tea is a cup of life.  ~Author Unknown

 

Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world. ~T'ien Yiheng

 

Tea is instant wisdom - just add water! ~Astrid Alauda

 

Tea is liquid wisdom. ~Anonymous

 

Tea is nought but this:

First you heat the water,

Then you make the tea.

Then you drink it properly.

That is all you need to know.- Sen Rikyu, Zen Tea Master 1522-1591

 

Tea is wealth itself,

Because there is nothing that cannot be lost,

No problem that will not disappear,

No burden that will not float away,

Between the first sip and the last. --The Minister of Leaves

 

tea leaves

tea loves

loves tea

lives tea

leaves tea?

never.     ~Uniek Swain

 

Tea should be taken in solitude. ~C.S. Lewis

 

Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors. ~Alice Walker

 

Tea! thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid,... thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wind-tippling cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate. ~Colley Cibber, Lady's Last Stake

 

Tea, although an Oriental

Is a gentleman at least;

Cocoa is a cad and coward,

Cocoa is a vulgar beast. ~G.K. Chesterton, "The Song of Right and Wrong"

 

Tea, heav'ns delight, and natures truest wealth, that pleasing physic, and pledge of health, the statesman's counselor, the virgin's love, the muse's nectar, the drink of love. --Peter Antoine Motteux, “A Poem Upon Tea,” 1712

 

Tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervouse sensibilities...will always be the favored beverage of the intellectual. ~Thomas DeQuincy (1875-1959) Confession of an English Opium Eater

 

Tea…is a religion of the art of life. ~ Okakura Kakuzō

 

Tea's proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence. ~Samuel Johnson

 

Teas, Where small talk dies in agonies. ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.- Rev. Sydney Smith

 

The autumn leaves are falling like rain

Although my neighbors are all barbarians,

And you, you are a thousand miles away,

There are always two cups on my table. --Tang Dynasty Poem

 

The best quality tea must have creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen, curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like a fine earth newly swept by rain. ~Lu Yu

 

The daintiness and yet elegance of a china teacup focuses one to be gentle, to think warmly and to feel close.

--Carol and Malcolm Cohen

 

The first cup moistens my lips and throat.

The second shatters my loneliness.

The third causes the wrongs of life to fade gently from my recollection.

The fourth purifies my soul.

The fifth lifts me to the realms of the unwinking gods.

The sixth cup calls me to the realms of the immortals. 

The seventh cup - ah, but I could take no more!  I only feel the breath of the cool wind that raises in my sleeves.  Where is Elysium?  Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away thither. ~Lu Tung, "Tea-Drinking,” Tang Dynasty

 

The first sip of tea is the always the best - when you cringe as it burns the back of your throat, knowing you just had the hottest carpe-diem portion and that from here it will only get colder. ~The Quote Garden

 

The mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose. ~George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft

 

The perfect temperature for tea is two degrees hotter than just right. ~Terri Guillemets

 

The tea ceremony is more than an idealization of the form of drinking—it is a religion of the art of life.- Okakura Kakuzo

 

There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. ~Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

 

There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims

 

There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea. ~Bernard-Paul Heroux

 

Top off the tea... it lubricates the grey matter. ~Good Neighbors, quoted from stashtea.com

 

We had a kettle; we let it leak:

Our not repairing made it worse.

We haven't had any tea for a week...

The bottom is out of the Universe. ~Rudyard Kipling

 

What is the most wonderful thing for people like myself who follow the Way of Tea? My answer: the oneness of host and guest created through ‘meeting heart to heart’ and sharing a bowl of tea.- Soshitsu Sen, Grand Master XIV, Urasenke School of Tea

 

When the news reporter said "Shopkeepers are opening their doors bringing out blankets and cups of tea" I just smiled.  It's like yes.  That's Britain for you.  Tea solves everything.  You're a bit cold?  Tea.  Your boyfriend has just left you?  Tea.  You've just been told you've got cancer?  Tea.  Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt?  Tea dammit!  And if it's really serious, they may bring out the coffee.  The Americans have their alert raised to red, we break out the coffee.  That's for situations more serious than this of course.  Like another England penalty shoot-out. ~Jslayeruk, as posted on Metaquotes Livejournal, in response to the July 2005 London subway bombings

 

When the tea is brought at five o'clock

And all the neat curtains are drawn with care,

The little black cat with bright green eyes

Is suddenly purring there. --Harold Monroe, “Milk for the Cat”

 

While there's tea, there's hope. --Sir Arthur Pinero

 

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ~C.S. Lewis

 

“You have arrived at a propitious moment, coincident with your country’s one indisputable contribution to Western civilisation - afternoon tea”. - Hugo Drax (James Bond: Moonraker)