Tea in Literature
Tea has found its way in to may types of literature. Here are two favourite examples of ours:
I have drunk tea brewed by the women who picked it
At the end of their day and the start of my night.
I have drunk tea after birth and it tasted like nectar.
I have had tea with milk, sugar, jasmine and Mary.
I have drunk Ceylon in Ceylon, and Darjeeling in Darjeeling.
I have had it green, black, white, red and golden.
I have drunk it from porcelain, bamboo and clay.
I have cried into it and had my future read from it.
I have drunk it when I haven’t wanted it, and when I’m desperate for one.
I’ve drunk it with Russian sailors, Shivas, divas, grandmothers, vicars, lovers, friends.
In my dreams I’ve had a nice cup of tea with the Queen, Attilla the Hun, Elvis, Nelson Mandela.
I’ve had it hot, iced and spiced.
I’ve drunk it in the air, up a mountain, on an elephant, in a train, and tea at sea.
Tea, tea, tea, will you share a cup with me?
Annamaria Murphy
I have had tea with…
Great aunts using silver teapots – milk in first and little finger crooked
Cucumber sandwiches
A Pasha’s daughter, in a glass set in filigree gold
Crumpets
Grey-bearded Uzbekis smoking hubble-bubble pipes
Sympathy
The first girl I kissed
Condors flying overhead
A string orchestra
Argentine gauchos with peg teeth – but that was green tea from a silver straw
A force 9 gale blowing
The widow of Victor, murdered by General Pinochet
A heavy heart
Half my mouth numb from dentist’s novocaine
Cavers in New Zealand, filming a moa skeleton
A chainsaw in my hand
A hand over my mug, sitting round a camp fire in India under a banyan tree
Every time the leopards roared nearby the langur monkeys overhead peed themselves
Poetry
An Ethiopian princess
A cat on my knee
The skipper of a trawler in a North Sea gale – and I was sick
A thermos in China
Woolly gloves on
A KGB Intourist guide
Rancid yak butter
Haste
The ghosts of my dead friends
Spring sunshine
Janet in the kitchen at 4.30pm
My keyboard, writing this
Mike Andrews
Both examples were found at the Eden Project in Cornwall.
Annamaria and Mike- we were unable to find a contact for either of you. If you would like these removed please contact the Tracing Tea team. |
