Quotations about Tea

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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. ~Gladstone, 1865


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


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


Tea is a cup of life. ~Author Unknown


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


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


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


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


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


Tea is liquid wisdom. ~Anonymous


Find yourself a cup of tea; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about hundreds of things. ~Saki


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


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


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


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

O' peppermint tea -
two delights per sip
as steamy hot as passion
cool as a wintry lake dip
~Terri Guillemets


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



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


American-style iced tea is the perfect drink for a hot, sunny day. It's never really caught on in the UK, probably because the last time we had a hot, sunny day was back in 1957. ~Tom Holt


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


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


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"


Tea does our fancy aid,
Repress those vapours which the head invade
And keeps that palace of the soul serene.
~Edmund Waller, "Of Tea"


A Proper Tea is much nicer than a Very Nearly Tea, which is one you forget about afterwards. ~A.A. Milne


The first cup moistens my lips and throat. The second cup breaks my loneliness. The third cup searches my barren entrail but to find therein some thousand volumes of odd ideographs. The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration - all the wrongs of life pass out through my pores. At the fifth cup I am purified. 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"


tea leaves
tea loves
loves tea
lives tea
leaves tea?
never.
~Uniek Swain


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


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


Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?
~Rupert Brooke, "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester," 1912
(Thanks, Helen)


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


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


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


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


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 is instant wisdom - just add water! ~Astrid Alauda


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


The first sip of tea is the always the best... you cringe as it burns the back of your throat, knowing you just had the hottest carpe-diem portion. ~Terri Guillemets


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


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


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


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