Tea is quiet and our thirst for tea is never far from our craving for beauty. – James Norwood Pratt

If she speaks, it will only be a pleasant word or two; should she have anything important to say, the moment will be after tea, not before it; this she knows by instinct. – George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, 1903 (of the housekeeper b

…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 forest floor newly swept by rain. – Luwuh, Chaking, regarding selection of the best quality tea leaves