Nancy Astor & Winston Churchill - Thomas Hardy - India: Nature's Wonderland TV - Father Ted TV - Simon Schama TV - America: The Story of the US TV - James Burke TV - William Congreve - The Royle Family TV - This World TV - Lewis Carroll - Joe Pasquale - William Cobbett - Robert Anderson - Henry Fielding - Samuel Johnson - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Charles Dickens - Percy Bysshe Shelley - Xu Guangqi - Rupert Brooke - George Orwell - Edmund Waller - Aravind Adiga - Jane Austen - Robert Tressell - R C Sherriff - Mark Thomas TV - Inside the World’s Greatest Hotels TV - Simon Reeve TV -
Lady Nancy Astor: Winston, if you were my husband, I’d poison your tea.
Churchill: Nancy, if I were your husband, I’d drink it. attributed & doubtful
The kettle descants in a cozy drone,
And the young wife looks in her husband’s face,
And then at her guest’s, and shows in her own
Her sense that she fills an envied place;
And the visiting lady is all abloom,
And says there was never so sweet a room.
And the happy young housewife does not know
That the woman beside her was first his choice,
Till the fates ordained it could not be so ...
Betraying nothing in look or voice
The guest sits smiling and sips her tea,
And he throws her a stray glance yearningly. Thomas Hardy, At Tea
India is well known for its tea ... It produces over a million tons of it a year. India: Nature’s Wonderland I, BBC 2015
Are you sure you won’t have some tea, Paul?
No, I’m fine. Father Ted s1e2: Entertaining Father Stone, Channel 4 1995
Didn’t our Lord himself on the cross pause for a nice cup of tea before giving himself up for the world? Father Ted s2e1: Hell, Mrs Doyle
Then in one notorious incident the tormented Redcoats opened fire before the Statehouse; five Bostonians were left dead on the street. Shocked by the killings over the next three years both sides let things calm down. Eventually the British dropped all their taxes except one: that on tea. Simon Schama, A History of Britain s2e4: The Wrong Empire, BBC 2001
Britain has repealed all taxes except one: on tea. In one of the most famous acts of resistance in history, rebels dump over $1,000,000 worth of tea into Boston Harbor. The British respond by closing down Boston Harbor. America: The Story of the US: Rebels, History 2010
In the seventeenth century when the first Dutch traders arrived out here they found all the locals from the Emperor down sitting around drinking tea ... At the same time asking questions ... The Zen Buddhist tea ceremony was supposed to help you find infinite oneness and universal understanding. James Burke, Connections s2e6: Echoes of the Past, BBC 1994
Tea: by the late 1800s we Brits were importing oh eighteen million pounds of it a year, mostly from China. James Burke: Connections s2e12: Hot Pickle
The Yankee Clipper. In 1851 the fastest [tea] ship in the world. James Burke, Connections s2e15: Making Waves
Retired to their tea and scandal, according to their custom. William Congreve, 1670-1729, The Double Dealer
I am making a brew. Even though that’s my favourite programme, I am making a brew. And do you know why? Because I’m a family man. The Royle Family s2e5: Barbara Finally Has Enough, Jim, BBC 1999
I’m travelling more than a thousand miles across east Africa to meet the people who supply us with our national drink. Behind each cup is an army of pickers, packers, growers and truckers. Tea is a massive industry employing millions of people. This World: The Tea Trail with Simon Reeve, BBC 2015
East Africa is where most of the tea that we drink in Britain actually comes from. ibid.
Child labour is a huge issue. ibid.
Tea is keeping them poor. ibid.
‘Yes, that’s it!’ said the Hatter with a sigh, ‘it’s always tea time.’ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
‘Take some more tea,’ the March Hare said to Alice. ibid.
I’ve just had some bad news about my granddad. Apparently, my granddad has come back from the doctor’s this week – he can only get excited by putting his willy in a hot mug of water. It’s not my cup of tea. Joe Pasquale, cited The 100 Greatest Comedians, 2010
Free yourselves from the slavery of the tea and coffee and other slop-kettle. William Cobbett, 1762-1835, English political reformer
Tea and Sympathy. Robert Anderson, title of play
Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. Henry Fielding, 1707-54, Love in Several Masques
A hardened and shameless tea-drinker who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only the 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. Samuel Johnson, Literary Magazine vol II
Tea’s proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence. Samuel Johnson
I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground
My dear, if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs. Charles Dickens, Mrs Lirriper’s Legacy
Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine,
Yet let’s be merry; we’ll have tea and toast;
Custards for supper, and an endless host
Of syllabubs and jellies and mincepies,
And other such ladylike luxuries. Percy Bysshe Shelley
The cup of tea on arrival at a country house is a thing which, as a rule, I particularly enjoy. I like the crackling logs, the shaded lights, the scent of buttered toast, the general atmosphere of leisured coziness. P G Wodehouse
Tea is a divine herb. Xu Guangqi
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea? Rupert Brooke, The Old Vicarage, Grantchester
Tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country. George Orwell, Smothered Under Journalism, 1946
Tea does our fancy aid,
Repress those vapours which the head invade
And keeps that palace of the soul serene. Edmund Waller, Of Tea
Go to a tea shop anywhere along the Ganga, sir, and look at the men working in that tea shop – men, I say, but better call them human spiders that go crawling in between and under the tables with rags in their hands, crushed humans in crushed uniforms, sluggish, unshaven, in their thirties and forties or fifties but still ‘boys’. Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger p51