A. Gilbert February 20 2025

A. Gilbert
Gin is cheering and wine makes the heart of a man, but when you're in a real turmoil, there's nothing like a good strong cup of tea

George Gissing February 18 2025

George Gissing
Perhaps it is whilst drinking tea that I most of all enjoy the sense of leisure

Lin Yutang February 14 2025

Lin Yutang
There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life

William Gladstone February 12 2025

William Gladstone
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

Soshitsu Sen XV, quoted b Kenneth S.Cohen February 10 2025

Soshitsu Sen XV, quoted b Kenneth S.Cohen
A cup of tea is a cup of peace

James Norwood Pratt February 07 2025

James Norwood Pratt

Tea is quiet and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty

T'ien Yi-heng February 05 2025

T'ien Yi-heng
Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world

Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men In A Boat) February 04 2025

Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men In A Boat)
It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomachs will do so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon, it works! After beefsteak and porter, it says 

sleep! After a cup of tea (two spoonsful 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 and up through long lanes of flaming stares to the gates of eternity!

Mu Tiang February 03 2025

Mu Tiang
The first bowl washed the cobwebs from my mind. The whole world seemed to sparkle. A second cleansed my spirit like purifying showers of rain. A third, and I was one of the Immortals - what need now for austerities? To purge our human sorrows? Worldly people going in for wine, sadly deceive themselves. For now I know the Way of Tea is real.

Having picked some tea, he drank it

Then he sprouted wings

And flew to a fairy mansion

To escape the emptiness of the world.

Lo T'ung February 02 2025

Lo T'ung
The first cup moistens my lips and throat. The second breaks my loneliness. The third searches my barren entrails 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 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 rises in my sleeves. Where is Elysium? Let me ride on this sweet breeze and draft away thither

Author unknown February 01 2025

Author unknown
Bread and water can so easily become toast and tea. (I particularly like this one)

Samuel Johnson, 1757 January 31 2025

Samuel Johnson, 1757

Mr. Hanway endeavours to show that the consumption of tea is injurious to the interests of our country. He is to expect little justice from the author of this extract, a hardened and shameless tea drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with the only infusion of this fascinating plant, whose kettle has scarcely time to cool, who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning

Du Yu. Ode to Tea January 30 2025

Du Yu. Ode to Tea
Tea ... wealth of the earth, blessed with the sweet spirit of heaven.

The thick froth ... lustrous like freshly fallen snow, and resplendent like the spring's blossom

Henry Fielding. Love in Several Masques January 29 2025

Henry Fielding. Love in Several Masques
Ha, ha, ha: love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea

Sydney Smith January 28 2025

Sydney Smith
Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea. I can drink any quantity when I have not tasted wine; otherwise I am haunted by blue devils by day and dragons by night

Chinese proverb January 27 2025

Chinese proverb
Water is the mother of tea, a teapot its father, and fire is the teacher

Sen no Rikyu January 26 2025

Sen no Rikyu

If you have one teapot and can brew your tea in it, that will do quite well. How much does he lack himself who must have a lot of things?

Hilaire Belloc January 24 2025

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

Nambo Sokei January 23 2025

Nambo Sokei
The truth lies in a bowl of tea

Dominic Cheung January 22 2025

Dominic Cheung
If I, the boiling water
And you, the tea
Then your fragrance
Has to depend solely upon my plainness
I have to be hot, even boiled
Before we consume each other

Chang Loo January 21 2025

Chang Loo
Tea is a beverage which not only quenches thirst, but dissipates sorrow

Henry James January 21 2025

Henry James
Under certain circumstances, there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea

Ueda Akinari January 20 2025

Ueda Akinari
Though I cannot flee from the world of corruption, I can prepare tea with water from a mountain stream and put my heart to rest

P.D. James January 19 2025

P.D. James
A cup of tea is the British pacifier against disaster, grief and shock