“Tea and water give each oter life,' the Professor was saying. 'The tea is still alive. This tea has tea and water virality,' he added. '... Afterwards, the taste still happens... It rises like velvet... It is a performance.”

“Tea and water give each other life,' the Professor was saying. 'The tea is still alive. This tea has tea and water vitality.”

“Heaven opened and the water hammered down, reviving the reluctant old well, greenmossing the pigless pigsty, carpet bombing still, tea-colored puddles the way memory bombs still, tea-colored minds.”

“Lastly, tea--unless one is drinking it in the Russian style--should be drunk WITHOUT SUGAR. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.”

“When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water.”

“Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire; Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire. ”

“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.”