Tea Stories
Du Yu - "Ode to Tea" April 05 2017
The thick froth ... lustrous like freshly fallen snow, and resplendent like the spring's blossom.Author unknown April 04 2017
The froth of tea burns with brilliance.Samuel Johnson, 1757 April 03 2017
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.Author unknown April 02 2017
Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea.Lo T'ung April 01 2017
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 raises in my sleeves. Where is Elysium? Let me ride on this sweet breeze and draft away thither.Chio Jen March 31 2017
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.Chiao Jen March 29 2017
Having picked some tea, he drank it
Then he sprouted wings
And flew to a fairy mansion
To escape the emptiness of the world.
Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men In A Boat) March 27 2017
"It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomachs wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon, it ways, "work!" After beefsteak and porter, it says"sleep!" After a cup of tea (two spoonsful for each cup, and don't let it stand 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!"
T'ien Yi-heng March 25 2017
Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world.James Norwood Pratt March 24 2017
Tea is quiet and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty.Soshitsu Sen XV, quoted b Kenneth S.Cohen March 23 2017
A cup of tea is a cup of peace.William Ewart Gladstone March 22 2017
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.Saying quoted in Sasaki Sanmi, Sadlo Saijiki March 22 2017
Doing nothing is respectable at tea.George Gissing March 21 2017
Perhaps it is while drinking tea that I most of all enjoy the sense of leisure.
(The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, 1903)
George Gissing March 20 2017
One of the shining moments of my day is that when, having returned a little weary from an afternoon walk, I exchange boots for slippers, outdoor coat for easy, familiar, shabby jacket, and, in my deep, soft-elbowed chair, await the tea-tray ... How delicious is the soft yet penetrating odor which floats into my study, with the appearance of the teapot! What a glow does it bring after a walk in the chilly rain!
(The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft 1903)