Quotes & Sayings About British Tea

fierce tea making

in time of war, — Geoffrey Hill

What did the soup say to the tea plate?
"You're too shallow for me. I like deep dish to dip right into!" I still keep my British humour in good taste. No room for egos or rumours. — Ana Claudia Antunes

I am terribly British. Especially in the eyes of Americans. I drink several gallons of tea a day, I'm often excessively polite and it's only through many years of expensive and painful dental work that I don't have bad teeth. — Rhianna Pratchett

The Death Star is just full of British actors opening doors and going,Oh ... I ... oh ... What is it Lieutenant Sebastian? It's just the Rebels, sir ... they're here. My God, man! Do they want tea? No, I think they're after something a bit more than that, sir. I don't know what it is, but they've brought a flag. Damn, that's dash cunning of them. — Eddie Izzard

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis argues that human beings cannot be truly good or moral without faith in God and without submis- sion to the will of Christ. Unfortunately, Lewis does not provide any actual data for his assertions. They are nothing more than the mild musings of a wealthy British man, pondering the state of humanity's soul between his sips of tea. Had Lewis actually famil- iarized himself with real human beings of the secular sort, per- haps sat and talked with them, he would have had to reconsider this notion. As so many apostates explained to me, morality is most certainly possible beyond the confines of faith. Can people be good without God? Can a moral orientation be sustained and developed outside of a religious context? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes. — Phil Zuckerman

The British have an umbilical cord which has never been cut and through which tea flows constantly. It is curious to watch them in times of sudden horror, tragedy or disaster. The pulse stops apparently and nothing can be done, and no move made, until "a nice cup of tea" is quickly made. There is no question that it brings solace and does steady the mind. What a pity all countries are not so tea-conscious. World-peace conferences would run more smoothly if "a nice cup of tea", or indeed, a samovar were available at the proper time. — Marlene Dietrich

Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea. — Anwar Al-Awlaki

Ah, there's nothing like tea in the afternoon. When the British Empire collapses, historians will find that it had made but two invaluable contributions to civilization - this tea ritual and the detective novel. — Ayn Rand

The confidence and security of a people can be measured by their attitude toward laxatives. At the high noon of the British sun, soldiers in far-flung outposts of the Empire doctored themselves with "a spoonful o' gunpowder in a cuppa 'ot tea." Purveyors and users of harsh laxatives were not afraid of being thought mean and unfriendly just because their laxatives were. But in America, the need to be nice is so consuming that nobody would dare take a laxative that makes you run up the stairs two at a time, pushing others aside and yelling, "Get out of the way! — Florence King

Tea! That's all I needed! Good cup of tea! Super-heated infusion of free-radicals and tannin, just the thing for healing the synapses. — Russell T. Davies

Have you by chance brought some real British tea? Twining's? Or from Jackson's in Piccadilly? — Anthony Burgess

Dad was at his desk when I opened the door, doing what all British people do when they're freaked out: drinking tea. — Rachel Hawkins

Alternative Anthem.


Put the kettle on
Put the kettle on
It is the British answer
to Armageddon.

Never mind taxes rise
Never mind trains are late
One thing you can be sure of
and that's the kettle, mate.

It's not whether you lose
It's not whether you win
It's whether or not
you've plugged the kettle in.

May the kettle ever hiss
May the kettle ever steam
It is the engine
that drives our nation's dream.

Long live the kettle
that rules over us
May it be limescale free
and may it never rust.

Sing it on the beaches
Sing it from the housetops
The sun may set on empire
but the kettle never stops. — John Agard

The trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together, and made complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it. To the eternal glory of British science their labor bore fruit. — George Mikes

Tea? Good God, no. It's mud. How the British ever built an empire drinking the filthy stuff is beyond me. And if we carry on drinking it, I've no doubt that the empire won't last much longer. No, a civilized person drinks coffee. — Charlie Higson

It is Sunday afternoon, preferably before the war. The wife is already asleep in the armchair, and the children have been sent out for a nice long walk. You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose, and open the News of the World. Roast beef and Yorkshire, or roast pork and apple sauce, followed up by suet pudding and driven home, as it were, by a cup of mahogany-brown tea, have put you in just the right mood. Your pipe is drawing sweetly, the sofa cushions are soft underneath you, the fire is well alight, the air is warm and stagnant. In these blissful circumstances, what is it that you want to read about?
Naturally, about a murder. — George Orwell

March 1774 by declaring the port of Boston closed until the East India Company had been compensated for its losses. This was the first of the so-called Coercive Acts - a series of laws passed in 1774 in which the British attempted to assert their authority over the colonies but instead succeeded only in enraging the colonists further and ultimately prompted the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775. It is tempting to wonder whether a government less influenced by the interests of the company might have simply shrugged off the tea parties or come to some compromise with the colonists. — Tom Standage

When I am alone, I drink my tea with pinkie raised, like a kid playing "tea party." At times, a fancy British accent is involved. Dahling! — Christy Hall

What's the news of the war?' The doctor twisted the ends of his moustache and said, 'Germany is taking everything, the Italians are playing the fool, the French have run away, the Belgians have been overrun whilst they were looking the other way, the Poles have been charging tanks with cavalry, the Americans have been playing baseball, the British have been drinking tea and adjusting their monocles, the Russians have been sitting on their hands except when voting unanimously to do whatever they are told. Thank God we are out of it. Why don't we turn on the radio? — Louis De Bernieres

Jules: I'll make tea. That'll help.
Emma: Tea? Tea is your solution? You're not really even British! you spent two months in England! How did they brainwash you?
Jules: You don't like coffee, and you need caffeine.
Emma: I get my caffeine the way right-thinking people get it. From chococlate! — Cassandra Clare

British passion for Chinese tea was unstoppable, but the Chinese had no desire for our offerings, however much we tried to sell them woolen clothes or cutlery. — Kate Williams

tea was drunk with boiled water, which killed off disease-carrying bacteria. Tea also possesses, in tannin, an antiseptic agent which made mothers' breast milk the healthiest it had ever been. No other nation drank tea on the same scale as the British. This, according to Macfarlane, was the key to why the Industrial Revolution was born here instead of somewhere else. — Phil Mason

I didn't mean to go after him, but no one was doing anything, and I'm probably the only one here who's actually been in the woods for real."
"Besides - he's British. What do they know about camping and wilderness survival and all that?" ...
There too busy drinking tea and playing cricket. He would have been lost without me — Heather Davis

I would never advise shooing away a good idea. — Phoebe Stone

Radicalism is as British as tea and cakes, as much a part of our make-up as monarchy and football. It will never have its own jubilees, palaces or honours system. — Geoff Mulgan

traditional British tea. — Michael Phillip Cash

This effort notwithstanding, however, certain British institutions were not be trifled with: "Sent hands to tea at 3:30 with Indefatigable to go to tea after us," Kennedy recorded in his action report. By 3:45 p.m., Goeben and Breslau were pulling away into a misty haze; at 4:00, Goeben was only just in sight against the horizon. Dublin held on, but at 7:37 p.m. the light cruiser signaled, "Goeben out of sight now, can only see smoke; still daylight." By nine o'clock, the smoke had disappeared, daylight was gone, and Goeben and Breslau had vanished. At 9:52 p.m., on Milne's instructions, Dublin gave up the chase. At 1:15 a.m., a signal from Malta informed the Mediterranean Fleet that war had begun. — Robert K. Massie

He had every prejudice and aspiration of every American Common Man. He believed in the desirability and therefore the sanctity of thick buckwheat cakes with adulterated maple syrup, in rubber trays for the ice cubes in his electric refrigerator, in the especial nobility of dogs, all dogs, in the oracles of S. Parkes Cadman, in being chummy with all waitresses at all junction lunch rooms, and in Henry Ford (when he became President, he exulted, maybe he could get Mr. Ford to come to supper at the White House), and the superiority of anyone who possessed a million dollars. He regarded spats, walking sticks, caviar, titles, tea-drinking, poetry not daily syndicated in newspapers and all foreigners, possibly excepting the British, as degenerate. — Sinclair Lewis

The difference between the American version of 'Live Aid' and the British one - in England, if you wanted a cup of tea, you made it yourself. If you wanted a sandwich, you bought it. In typical American style, at the American concert, there were laminated tour passes and champagne and caviar. — Phil Collins

He takes two tea bags in a four-ounce cup and he doesn't mince words: when a pair of earnest British journalists once asked him how he thought the tigers could be saved, his answer, "AIDS," caught them off guard.
"But don't you care about people?" one of them asked.
"Not really," he replied. "Especially not the Chinese. — John Vaillant

My mother always tried to keep a little bit of British culture in our family. We'd drink tea all the time! — Kurt Cobain

One Bagatelle, and I'll raise you a novel," Megan had tweeted back.
"Writing for tea? Now that would have been a solution for the British empire," Laura returned.
"Writing for me," Megan had typed.
"I'll write you a tea fortune."
"No deal. I want a novel. September sounds good. — L.L. Barkat

An enormous semiofficial drug-smuggling operation was established in order to improve Britain's unfavorable balance of payments with China - the direct result of the British love of tea. — Tom Standage

I had a lot of anger against the way things 'should be done' - conforming to social norms, ticking boxes to gain acceptance. Frustration at the pointlessness and predictability of smalltalk. Oh and a lot of anger about tea, which the British seem to use to avoid actually saying anything. — Rupert Friend

My beloved,
I write to you from Rawalpindi, with the help of a Turkic-speaking imam, a kind man with a twinkle in his eyes and a soft spot for lovers. Now two years after I left Chinese Turkestan, I am about to embark on a solo journey there to find you, and my heart shakes with both hope and dread.
If I do not find you, then I will leave this letter in our cave, and pray that God willing, someday, as you ride by, you will be moved by an inexplicable urge to see the place where we had been so happy.
I was a fool to leave. If you can forgive me, please come and find me in Rawalpindi. Ask for Arvand the gem dealer at the British garrison, and they will know where to direct you.
I enclose a bar of chocolate, a packet of tea from Darjeeling, and all my fervent wishes for your well-being and happiness.
The one who loves you, always — Sherry Thomas

President Obama hosted a state dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron. The president and the British are getting along a lot better lately. They love to compare notes on ways the Tea Party's always trying to overthrow their rule in America. — Argus Hamilton

Is it far?" she asked.
"About three hours, ma'am," he said, keeping his eyes on the pavement.
"Another three hours." She tried to think of something witty and British to say. "I already feel like a thrice-used tea bag."
He didn't smile.
"Oh. Um, I'm Jane. What's your name?"
He shook his head. "Not allowed to say."
Of course, she thought, I'm entering Austenland. The servant class is invisible. — Shannon Hale

Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea. — George Orwell

My flat's about half a mile away, and you know what I'd like most of all in the world? I'd like a cup of tea. Come on, let's go and put the kettle on. — Philip Pullman

I don't drink tea. I hate it. It's mud. Moreover it's one of the main reasons for the downfall of the British Empire. Be a good girl and make me some coffee. — Ian Fleming

foreign Tyrants and of Nymphs at home; Here thou, great ANNA! whom three realms obey. Dost sometimes counsel take - and sometimes Tea. Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort, To taste awhile the pleasures of a Court; 10 In various talk th' instructive hours they past, Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last; One speaks the glory of the British Queen, And one describes a charming Indian screen; A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes; 15 At ev'ry word a reputation dies. — Alexander Pope

I grinned. I'm anybody's for a cuppa and a biscuit. — David Stuart Davies

Thanks to feminism, women can now acquire status in two ways: through marriage or their own achievements. Cure cancer or marry the man who does, either way society will applaud. Unless he marries into the British royal family, it doesn't work that way for men. Wives shed no glory on their husbands. Having tea with Nancy Reagan is an honor; having tea with Denis Thatcher is a joke. — Katha Pollitt

We all sat there laughing and sipping tea peacefully, an infidel and representatives from three warring sects of Islam. And I thought if we can get along this well, we can accomplish anything. The British policy was 'divide and conquer.' But I say 'unite and conquer. — Greg Mortenson