38 Tea Quotes That Will Inspire Every Tea Drinker

Inspiring tea quotes have always been a part of my tea journey. They have helped me learn more about tea, view it in a different way, relate to other tea drinkers and, most importantly, celebrate the leaf. These words can also be referred to as tea-spiration. I wrote a book titled just that and is filled with inspirational words for tea lovers. In fact, there is a quote from my book highlighted below. However, there are also great tea sayings from other authors, tea professionals, poets, spiritual leaders and more. Enjoy these quotes about our favourite beverage. They are the ones that helped me most during my journey and will inspire you to put the kettle on.

Tea Quotes For Daily Life

“Tea is a part of daily life. It is as simple as eating when hungry and drinking when thirsty.” – Yamamoto Soshun

“No matter where you are in the world, you are at home when tea is served.” – Earlene Grey

“There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.” – Lin Yutang

“When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment.” – Muriel Barbery

“Enjoy life sip by sip, not gulp by gulp.” – The Minister of Leaves

“The tea session is modeled after the silence of retreat; a time to enjoy life far removed from daily existence.” – Sen Joo

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

Tea Quotes For Happiness & Comfort

“There is no problem on earth that can’t be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea.” – Jasper Fforde

“A true warrior, like tea, shows his strength in hot water.” – Chinese Proverb

“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

“The mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose.”  – George Gissing

“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

“There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be diminished by a nice cup of tea.” – Bernard-Paul Heroux

“The spirit of the tea beverage is one of peace, comfort and refinement.” – Arthur Gray

Tea Quotes For Connecting

“The very act of preparing and serving tea encourages conversation. The little spaces in time created by teatime rituals call out to be filled with conversation. Even the tea itself–warm and comforting–inspires a feeling of relaxation and trust that fosters shared confidences.” – Emilie Barnes

“No matter what is happening in your life, you always offer tea.” – Clemantine Wamariya

“When you are drinking tea, it is basically a private conversation between the tea and your individual soul.”  – Lu Ann Pannunzio

“Tea is best when enjoyed in pleasant surroundings, whether indoors or out, where the atmosphere is tranquil, the setting harmonious.” – John Blofeld

Tea Quotes For Meditation

“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. So they listen to the kettle creating a melody, and in that listening they become more silent, more alert.” – Osho

“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

“Tea time is a chance to slow down, pull back and appreciate our surroundings.” – Letitia Baldrige

“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

“A practitioner of tea in the countryside sent some hold to Rikyu with a request that he purchase for him a tea utensil of any kind. Rikyu spent the entire amount of money on white cloth, sending it with the comment, ‘With tea, even when one has no nice utensils, if only one has clean cloth for wiping the bowl, it is possible to drink tea.’” – Sen Sotan

“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. The fifth lifts me to the realms of the unwinking gods.” – Chinese Mystic, Tang Dynasty

“Doing nothing is respectable at tea.” – Sasaki Sanmi

& For Inner Peace

“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. It is hygiene, for it enforces cleanliness; it is economics, for it shows comfort in simplicity rather than in the complex and costly; it is moral geometry, inasmuch as it defines our sense of proportion to the universe.” – Kakuzo Okakura

“Tea tempers the spirit and harmonizes the mind; dispels lassitude and relieves fatigue, awakens thought and prevents drowsiness.” – Lu Yu

“Water is the mother of tea, a teapot its father, and fire the teacher.” – Chinese Proverb

Tea does our fancy aid,
Repress those vapours which the head invade
And keeps that palace of the soul serene.
– Edmund Waller, “Of Tea”

Tea Quotes For Creativity

“Tea is the magic key to the vault where my brain is kept.” – Frances Hardinge

“Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson 

“I always fear that creation will expire before teatime.” – Sydney Smith

“Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage.” – Catherine Douzel

Tea Quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh

Some of my most favourite tea related quotes are from Thich Nhat Hanh. Therefore, he deserved his own section of quotes:

“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

“Tea is an act complete in its simplicity. When I drink tea, there is only me and the tea. The rest of the world dissolves. There are no worries about the future. No dwelling on past mistakes. Tea is simple: loose-leaf tea, hot pure water, a cup. I inhale the scent, tiny delicate pieces of the tea floating above the cup. I drink the tea, the essence of the leaves becoming a part of me. I am informed by the tea, changed. This is the act of life, in one pure moment, and in this act the truth of the world suddenly becomes revealed: all the complexity, pain, drama of life is a pretense, invented in our minds for no good purpose. There is only the tea, and me, converging.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

“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

“Wherever you are drinking your tea, whether at work, in a cafe, or at home, it is wonderful to allow enough time to appreciate it.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

“You must be completely awake in the present to enjoy the tea.
Only in the awareness of the present, can your hands feel the pleasant warmth of the cup.
Only in the present, can you savor the aroma, taste the sweetness, appreciate the delicacy.
If you are ruminating about the past, or worrying about the future, you will completely miss the experience of enjoying the cup of tea.
You will look down at the cup, and the tea will be gone.
Life is like that.
If you are not fully present, you will look around and it will be gone.
You will have missed the feel, the aroma, the delicacy and beauty of life.
It will seem to be speeding past you. The past is finished.
Learn from it and let it go.
The future is not even here yet. Plan for it, but do not waste your time worrying about it.
Worrying is worthless.
When you stop ruminating about what has already happened, when you stop worrying about what might never happen, then you will be in the present moment.
Then you will begin to experience joy in life.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

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Do you have a favourite tea quote that is not on this list? Share it in the comments below!