Some examples of tea in literature include:
Hawk: Far in the dreamy East there grows a plant whose native home is the Sun’s Cousin’s garden.
The ladies: Oh, it is tea!
Hawk: It is.
The ladies: To think of tea!
Hawk: Its home lies in the Valley of Romance, a thousand miles beyond the wilderness. Fill up my cup. I thank you. Let us hold on tea and love a good tea-table talk.
Love’s Comedy by Henrik Ibsen
At ten o’clock Mma Makutsi got up from her desk and went into the back room to make the tea. She had been asked to make bush tea, which was Mma Ramotswe’s favourite, and she soon brought two cups back. She had a tin of condensed milk in her handbag, and she took this out and poured a small amount into each cup. Then they drank their tea, watching a small boy at the edge of the road throwing stones at a skeletal dog.
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more”.
“You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing”.
“Nobody asked your opinion,” said Alice.
“Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked triumphantly.
Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. “Why did they live at the bottom of a well?”
The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, “It was a treacle-well”.
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
To the office, where Sir W. Batten, Colonel Slingsby, and I sat awhile, and Sir R. Ford coming to us about some business, we talked together of the interest of this kingdom to have a peace with Spain and a war with France and Holland; where Sir R. Ford talked like a man of great reason and experience. And afterwards I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before, and went away.
Diary of Samuel Pepys
Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, on my return home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent for one of those squat, plump little cakes called “petites madeleines,” which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell. And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory - this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could, no, indeed, be of the same nature. Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
Mrs Doyle: Do you think would our new guest like a cup of tea Father? The little sheep fellow.
Ted: I don’t think they drink tea Mrs. Doyle. Not unless you have some special sheep tea. (laughs)
Mrs Doyle: Yes.
Ted: What?
Mrs Doyle: I do have some sheep tea in the kitchen.
Ted: Right well, em, give him some of that then.
Mrs Doyle: Okay so.
Television series Father Ted
“No,” he said, “look, it’s very, very simple … all I want … is a cup of tea. You are going to make one for me. Keep quiet and listen”.
And he sat. He told the Nutri-Matic about India, he told it about China, he told it about Ceylon. He told it about broad leaves drying in the sun. He told it about silver teapots. He told it about summer afternoons on the lawn. He told it about putting in the milk before the tea so it wouldn’t get scalded. He even told it (briefly) about the history of the East India Company.
“So that’s it, is it?” said the Nutri-Matic when he had finished.
“Yes,” said Arthur, “that is what I want”.
“You want the taste of dried leaves in boiled water?”
“Er, yes. With milk”.
“Squirted out of a cow?”
“Well, in a manner of speaking I suppose”.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The naming of teas is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your everyday games-
Some might think you as mad as a hatter
Should you tell them each goes by several names.
For starters each tea in this world must belong
To the families Black or Green or Oolong;
Then look more closely as these family trees-
Some include Indians along with Chinese.
The Naming of Cats by T S Eliot
It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon it says, “Work!” After beefsteak and porter, it says, “Sleep!” After a cup of tea (two spoonfuls 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, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity!”.
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not - some people of course never do - the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime.
From The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
When comic book characters Asterix and Obelix come to Britain, tea has not arrived in the British Isles. The inhabitants partake of hot water with milk regularly at five o’clock. Even when fighting the Romans, the British forces stop at five o’clock to drink hot water. Eventually, character Getafix brings tea leaves to Britain.
If you can think of any other examples, please let us know.