Tea Quotes in Books/Literature

Share quotes about tea that you find in books or other literature.

"Come along inside . . . . We'll see if tea and buns can make the world a better place." The Wind in the Willows

". . . it's always tea time . . ." Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)

This one is from an author:

"There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The worst that the world has to offer, the greatest killers that man has ever seen, sit and drink builder’s tea from polystyrene cups, and the night is silent in their presence.”
- Stray Souls

The Godmother speaking) “Agnes, will you pass me my teacup? It seems that I am about to die; and I would like a little more tea.”

Nettle & Bone

"Tomorrow (Dec. 16) is the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. As George Banks recalls in 'Mary Poppins': While the ships lay in Boston Harbor, a party of colonists dressed as Indians boarded the vessels, 'behaved very rudely, and threw all the tea overboard, making the tea unsuitable for drinking. Even for Americans.'"
Ron Charles, Dec. 15, 2023 issue of Washington Post's "Book Club" newsletter

From The African Queen, by C.S. Forester:

"What about a cup o' tea, Miss?"

Tea! Heat and thirst and fatigue and excitement had done their worst for Rose. She was limp and weary, and her throat ached. The imminent prospect of a cup of tea roused her to trembling excitement. Twelve cups of tea, each, Samuel and she had drunk daily for years. To-day she had had none -- she had eaten no food either, but at the moment that meant nothing to her. Tea! A cup of tea! Two cups of tea! Half a dozen great mugs of tea, strong, delicious, revivifying! Her mind was suffused with rosy pictures of an evening's tea drinking, a debauch compared with which the spring sowing festivities at the village by the mission station were only a pale shade.

"I'd like a cup of tea," she said.

Delete. Wrong thread.

>7 lilithcat: I remember that scene.

I am reading Steeped in Malice by Vicki Delany I won from LT or GR. A cozy mystery.

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is set in a Chinese tea house in SF. Plenty of tea quotes within.

William Cowper's The Task:

"Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful ev'ning in."

And of course the GOM's

"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."

I haven't been able to pin down where he said that though.

>13 DuncanHill: Who is GOM?

>14 TempleCat: The GOM = The Grand Old Man, William Ewart Gladstone.

J. M. Barrie - Peter Pan

"Would you like an adventure, or would you like to have your tea first?"

I vote for the tea.

"Tea is the magic key to the vault where my brain is kept." - Frances Hardinge

“The secret is to fill up as you go, and never empty the pot completely.”

One of his female cohorts (Miss Simpson?) to Peter Wimsey
Strong Poison

>18 2wonderY: A fine quote. Miss Climpson, I believe.

>19 tealadytoo: Thanks! I’m listening to the audio and it’s my first read of the series.

That is actually my teapot practice as well.😁

“There is no problem on earth that can’t be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea.” - Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey.

“Near Neighbors”, Molly Clavering, 1956.

To Mrs. Ferrier’s protest that she was being a bother Mrs. Lenox merely replied that, of course, she must have tea. “How can we enjoy our own last cups if you haven’t had any?” she asked. “And a fresh pot will be an excuse for Miss Dorothea and me to have a *last* last cup. We are both what Mrs. Baird, my daily, describes as ‘Tea-Jennies’.”

Yoinked this from GoodReads. I was listening to The Haunting of Hill House and remember this passage. Not about tea specifically, but I like it. :)

“Eleanor looked up, surprised; the little girl was sliding back in her chair, sullenly refusing her milk, while her father frowned and her brother giggled and her mother said calmly, 'She wants her cup of stars.'

Indeed yes, Eleanor thought; indeed, so do I; a cup of stars, of course.

'Her little cup,' the mother was explaining, smiling apologetically at the waitress, who was thunderstruck at the thought that the mill's good country milk was not rich enough for the little girl. 'It has stars in the bottom, and she always drinks her milk from it at home. She calls it her cup of stars because she can see the stars while she drinks her milk.' The waitress nodded, unconvinced, and the mother told the little girl, 'You'll have your milk from your cup of stars tonight when we get home. But just for now, just to be a very good little girl, will you take a little milk from this glass?'

Don't do it, Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again; don't do it; and the little girl glanced at her, and smiled a little subtle, dimpling, wholly comprehending smile, and shook her head stubbornly at the glass. Brave girl, Eleanor thought; wise, brave girl.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Ah! It isn’t till the third chapter when Martha visits Mayland in his book packed hotel suite…

“It was the tea, she discovered, which was not black but Chinese. Smelled like peaches. Tasted slightly salty.”

Tea with the Black Dragon

From "Picture a Christmas" in Regency Glad Tidings by Carla Kelly:

" . . . All she wanted to do was curl up somewhere and die of loneliness. Another cup of tea, that wonderful British elixir of glad tidings, convinced her that life would go on."

“It's all I've ever wanted, really. Someone to make tea for. To know how they like to drink it, and share some pieces of time with them at the end of long days, and short ones, good days and bad, and everything in between.”
—Waiting for the Flood, Alexis Hall

>1 JenniferRobb: Hello! Is this quote actually from Wind in the Willows? I looked through the text and it doesn't seem to be there. This quote is everywhere, and I have been having a devil of a time finding the actual source.

27: Indeed, the quote appears to be widely attributed to Kenneth Grahame, but it does not seem to be from The Wind in the Willows. However, it is not from Pagan Papers, The Golden Age, The Headswoman, Dream Days, The Reluctant Dragon, or First Whisper of "The Wind in the Willows", either, so, I am out of ideas.

From a poem by Fariza Ongarsynova found in Contemporary Kazakh Literature: Poetry, a Kazakh poetry anthology downloadable for free here: https://www.cambridge.org/partnership/kazakhstan

Tea more delicious because of the ritual,
traveller and host drink it slowly…
The heavy weight of years now offloaded
from the soul – the new ways are already calling.

>27 CodyNichols: You prompted me to look as well. The only reference to tea in The Wind In The Willows is in chapter 8. The jailer’s daughter brings Toad “a cup of fragrant tea” along with toast. The toast gets a lot more description than the tea.