Steeped in Wisdom: 80 Essential Tea Quotes to Sip and Savor
Tea pot and cup of tea
Tea may lack coffee's bracing wallop, but this delicious brew has been comforting stressed-out people for thousands of years. From ancient Chinese legends of emperors happening upon magical leaf brews to rowdy Americans stirring up rebellion in Boston's famous Tea Party, tea has made its mark throughout history.
The tea quotes below from some incredibly wise writers celebrate everything tea lovers enjoy about this mellow yet marvelous beverage. When you're steeping in the simple routine of heating water and prepping some leaves, it's easy to grasp the "greatness in small things" that tea represents. These 80 great tea quotes highlight how a pause for a sip can calm the chaos we deal with in the daily grind.
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80 Best Tea Quotes
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1. “Tea is the magic key to the vault where my brain is kept.” — Frances Hardinge
2. “If leeches ate peaches instead of my blood, then I would be free to drink tea in the mud!” — Emilie Autumn, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls
3. “Enjoy life sip by sip, not gulp by gulp.” — The Minister of Leaves
4. "Tea is the elixir of life." — Lao Tzu
5. “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.” — Sen Soshitsu
6. "There are those who love to get dirty and fix things. They drink coffee at dawn, beer after work. And those who stay clean, just appreciate things. At breakfast they have milk and juice at night. There are those who do both, they drink tea.” — Gary Snyder
7. “A cup of tea is an excuse to share great thoughts with great minds.” — Christina Re
8. “Tea is best when enjoyed in pleasant surroundings, whether indoors or out, where the atmosphere is tranquil, the setting harmonious.” — John Blofeld
9. "Tea is a cup of life." — Anonymous
10. “Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o'clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.” — Thomas De Quincey
11. “I always fear that creation will expire before teatime.” — Sydney Smith
12. "Tea is the liquid that brings all my senses to life." — Christine Hanse
13. “If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty.” — Japanese Proverb
14. "Come, let us have some tea and continue to talk about happy things." — Chaim Potok
15. “Surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea.” — Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret
16. "Tea is an act complete in its simplicity." — Thich Nhat Hanh
17. “There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.” — Lin Yutang
18. “There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be diminished by a nice cup of tea.” — Bernard Paul Heroux
19. “You, me, and a cup of tea.” — Unknown
20. “The ‘art of tea’ is a spiritual force for us to share.” — Alexandra Stoddard
21. “Wherever you are in the world, you are at home when tea is served.” — Earlene Grey
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22. “Wherever you are drinking your tea, whether at work, in a café or at home, it is wonderful to allow enough time to appreciate it.” — Thich Nhat Hannh
23. “Have a cup of positive—tea.” — Unknown
24. “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” — C.S. Lewis
25. “Teatime is a chance to slow down, pull back, and appreciate our surroundings.” — Letitia Baldridge
26. “Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.” — Bill Watterson
27. “Making tea is a ritual that stops the world from falling in on you.” — Jonathan Stroud
28. “Arthur blinked at the screens and felt he was missing something important. Suddenly he realized what it was. "Is there any tea on this spaceship?" he asked.” ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
29. “A cup of tea solves everything.” — Unknown
30. “Honestly, if you're given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don't say 'what kind of tea?” — Neil Gaiman
31. “Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.” — Ann Patchett, Truth & Beauty
32. “Better to be deprived of food for three days, than tea for one.” — Ancient Chinese proverb
33. “I am in no way interested in immortality, but only in the taste of tea.” — Lu T’ung
34. “A great idea should always be left to steep like loose tea leaves in a teapot for a while to make sure that the tea will be strong enough and the idea truly is a great one.” — Phoebe Stone
35. “Tea should be taken in solitude.” — C.S. Lewis
36. “The spirit of the tea beverage is one of peace, comfort, and refinement.” — Arthur Gray
37. “My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.” — Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
38. "I am a humble tea merchant, pouring out the elixir of life to the world." — Kakuzō Okakura
39. “Tea is quiet and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty.” — James Norwood Pratt
40. “Come, sit down and have some tea. Bread and butter, cream and sugar. Now tell me of your troubles.” — A.A. Milne
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41. “I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.” ― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
42. “The tea session is modeled after the silence of retreat; a time to enjoy life far removed from daily existence.” — Sen Joo
43. “Water is the mother of tea, a teapot its father, and fire the teacher.” — Chinese Proverb
44. “The very act of preparing and serving tea encourages conversation.” — Emilie Barnes
45. “No matter what is happening in your life, you always offer tea.” — Clemantine Wamariya
46. “When you are drinking tea, it is basically a private conversation between the tea and your individual soul.” — Lu Ann Pannunzio
47. “Tea Is horrible. Absolute garbage water. Don't know why you all do that." — Ted Lasso
48. “If you ask Zen people they will say tea is not something that you pour with unawareness and drink like any other drink. It is not a drink, it is meditation; it is prayer." — Osho
49. “But indeed, I would rather have nothing but tea.” — Jane Austen
50. “Tea time is a chance to slow down, pull back and appreciate our surroundings.” — Letitia Baldrige
51. “Do not gulp the tea but sip it slowly allowing its fragrance to fill your mouth. There is no need to have any special attitude while drinking except one of thankfulness.” — Pojong Sunim
52. “Tea tempers the spirit and harmonizes the mind; dispels lassitude and relieves fatigue, awakens thought and prevents drowsiness.” — Lu Yu
53. “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 Nhat Hanh
54. “Tea does our fancy aid, Repress those vapours which the head invade, And keeps that palace of the soul serene.” — Edmund Waller
55. “The Philosophy of Tea is not mere aestheticism ... for it expresses conjointly with ethics and religion our whole point of view about man and nature." — Kakuzo Okakura
56. “In Britain, a cup of tea is the answer to every problem. Fallen off your bicycle? Nice cup of tea. Your house has been destroyed by a meteorite? Nice cup of tea and a biscuit. Your entire family has been eaten by a Tyrannosaurus Rex that has travelled through a space/time portal? Nice cup of tea and a piece of cake. Possibly a savoury option would be welcome here too, for example a Scotch egg or a sausage roll.” — David Walliams, Mr. Stink
57. "Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.” — Alice Walker, The Color Purple
58. “Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
59. “A cup of tea is a cup of peace.” — sometimes attributed to Sen Sshitsu VX
60. “Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage.” — Catherine Douzel
61. “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
62. “The mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose.” — George Gissing
63. “Tea, if you pour it out, is something you can never put back again." — Muriel Barbery
64. "Looking deeply into your tea, you see that you are drinking fragrant plants that are the gift of Mother Earth. You see the labor of the tea pickers; you see the luscious tea fields and plantations in Sri Lanka, China, and Vietnam. You know that you are drinking a cloud; you are drinking the rain. The tea contains the whole universe.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
65. "Tea is to the body as music is to the soul." — Earlene Grey
66. "The first sip is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy." — Jack Kerouac
67. “Tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervous sensibilities, will always be the favourite beverage of the intellectual.” — Thomas De Quincey
68. "A cup of tea makes everything better." — Bindi Irwin
69. "Tea does for the soul what the sun does for the earth." — Saying of the Bedouins
70. “The afternoon glow is bright and warm; the tea kettle sings.” — Tao Teh Ching
71. “When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things.” — Muriel Barbery
72. “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.” — Ancient Chinese Mystic
73. “What would the world be like without tea? How would we unwind after a hard day’s work? What would the British do at four o’clock in the afternoon?” — Jodi Ann Bickley
74. "Where there's tea, there's hope." — Arthur Wing Pinero
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75. “Tea! Bless ordinary everyday afternoon tea!” — Agatha Christie
76. “I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky
77. “Tea ... is a religion of the art of life.” — Kakuzō Okakura
78. “There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.” — Henry James
79. "Tea is the perfect bridge between humans and heaven." — Saying of the Bedouins
80. "Tea is the ultimate mental and medical remedy and has the ability to make one's life more full and complete." — Myoan Eisai
