Bubble Tea Quotes

Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.

Come oh come ye tea-thirsty restless ones -- the kettle boils, bubbles and sings, musically.

and who thought that Asian identification boiled down to being annoyingly obsessed with bubble tea and BTS were diluting the radical force of the diaspora canon.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urn Throws up a steamy column and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful ev'ning in.

The equation Bubble Tea = Something to Look Forward To depressurizes the misery of capitalism and is a Hello Kitty band-aid on the festering wound of Neo-Liberalism.

A loose definition of the Tea Party might be fifteen million pissed-off white people sent chasing after Mexicans on Medicaid by the small handful of banks and investment companies who advertise on Fox and CNBC.

On Hallows Eve, we witches meet to broil and bubble tasty treats like goblin thumbs with venom dip, crisp bat wings, and fried fingertips. We bake the loudest cackle crunch, and brew the thickest quagmire punch. Delicious are the rotting flies when sprinkled over spider pies. And, my oh my, the ogre brains all scrambled up with wolf remains! But what I love the most, it’s true, are festered boils mixed in a stew. They cook up oh so tenderly. It goes quite well with mugwort tea. So don’t be shy; the cauldron’s hot. Jump in! We witches eat a lot!

Our world isn’t about ideology anymore. It’s about complexity. We live in a complex bureaucratic state with complex laws and complex business practices, and the few organizations with the corporate willpower to master these complexities will inevitably own the political power. On the other hand, movements like the Tea Party more than anything else reflect a widespread longing for simpler times and simple solutions—just throw the U.S. Constitution at the whole mess and everything will be jake. For immigration, build a big fence. Abolish the Federal Reserve, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Education. At times the overt longing for simple answers that you get from Tea Party leaders is so earnest and touching, it almost makes you forget how insane most of them are.

Look at this abomination,” She grinned. “No way.” “Appalling.” “Amazing, you mean.” “I do not.” “This is my new favorite restaurant.” “You haven’t even tried it yet.” “It will be spectacular.” “It will be horrific—” “What’s all that about?” “Oh.” Olive’s cheeks warmed a little. “Nothing. They just have pumpkin spice bubble tea.

There are three stages of boiling: the first boil is when the little bubbles like the eye of fishes swim on the surface; the second boil is when the bubbles are like crystal beads rolling in a fountain; the third boil is when the billows surge wildly in the kettle.

There will usually be a pseudo-French bakery with weak coffee, bubble tea, and an array of glowing pastries that always look much better than they taste.

Oh what marvels fill me with thanksgiving! The deep mahogany of a leaf once green. The feathered fronds of tiny icicles coating every twig and branch in a wintry landscape. The feel of goosebumps thawing after endured frozen temperatures. Both hands clamped around a hot mug of herbal tea. The aromatic whiff of mint under my nose. The stir of emotion from a child's cry for mommy. A gift of love detached of strings. Spotted lilies collecting raindrops in a cupped clump of petals. The vibrant mélange of colors on butterfly wings. The milky luster of a single pearl. Rainbows reflecting off iridescence bubbles. Awe-struck silence evoked by any form of beauty. Avocado flecks in your eyes. Warm hands on my face. Sweetness on the tongue. The harmony of voices. An answered prayer. A pink balloon. A caress. A smile. More. These have become my treasures by virtue of thanksgiving.

People aren’t really needed for anything else in the Griftopia, but since Americans require the illusion of self-government, we have elections. To make sure those elections are effectively meaningless as far as Wall Street is concerned, two things end up being true. One is that voters on both sides of the aisle are gradually weaned off that habit of having real expectations for their politicians, consuming the voting process entirely as culture-war entertainment. The other is that millions of tenuously middle-class voters are conned into pushing Wall Street’s own twisted greed ethos as though it were their own. The Tea Party, with its weirdly binary view of society as being split up cleanly into competing groups of producers and parasites—that’s just a cultural echo of the insane greed-is-good belief system on Wall Street that’s provided the foundation/excuse for a generation of brilliantly complex thievery. Those beliefs have trickled down to the ex-middle-class suckers struggling to stay on top of their mortgages and their credit card bills, and the real joke is that these voters listen to CNBC and Fox and they genuinely believe they’re the producers in this binary narrative. They don’t get that somewhere way up above, there’s a group of people who’ve been living the Atlas dream for real—and building a self-dealing financial bureaucracy in their own insane image.

Vivi and Heather take them out for bubble tea. There are no actual bubbles. Instead, he is served toothsome balls soaked in a sweet, milky tea. Vivi orders grass jelly, and Heather gets a lavender drink that is the colour of the flowers and just as fragrant. Cardan is fascinated and insists on having a sip of each. Then he eats a bite of the half-dozen types of dumplings they order- mushroom, cabbage and pork, cilantro and beef, hot-oil chicken dumplings that numb his tongue, then creamy custard to cool it, along with sweet red bean that sticks to his teeth. Heather glares at Cardan as though he bit the head off a sprite in the middle of a banquet. 'You can't eat some of a dumpling and put it back,' Oak insists. 'That's revolting.' Cardan considers villainy takes many forms, and he is good at all of them. Jude stabs the remainder of the bean bun with a single chopstick, popping it into her mouth and chewing with obvious satisfaction. 'Gooh,' she gets out when she notices the others looking at her. Vivi laughs and orders more dumplings.

She stirred her tea round and round; the bubbles which swam and clustered in the cup seemed to her like the union of their minds.

Every restaurant and kitchen had its own distinctive culinary perfume.

The East and the West, like two dragons tossed in a sea of ferment, in vain strive to regain the jewel of life. We need a Niuka again to repair the grand devastation; we await the great Avatar. Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.

Love is how the other person likes their coffee on a morning. How long they put their toast in the toaster for. How they like their throw pillows on the sofa to be arranged. How hot they have their shower water. How many bubbles in the bath. How they always leave empty glasses on the bar in the kitchen, and how they know exactly how you take your coffee. How they know how many candles to light around a bathtub before you get in, and how chilled your wine has to be before it’s an acceptable drinking temperature. We still have so much to learn about each other, and while I know there’s no rush, I want to know these things. I want to know if he prefers butter or jelly on his toast on a morning and if really he prefers tea over coffee, which I suspect he does. I want to know if he changes the temperature of the shower water to my preference of red hot instead of a normal hot. I want to know every little thing I don’t. Because at the end of the day, when it gets hard and you’re in the middle of the room shouting at each other over something trivial, you won’t remember the huge declarations of love. When you’re sitting against your bedroom door crying because you hate fighting, you’ll remember the way he smiles at you over breakfast and the way he trails his thumb down your spine to make you shiver. You’ll remember all the crazy little things that remind you that, no matter what, no matter how difficult or impossible it may seem, there’s no one else in this world more perfect for you than he is.

They did not awaken quickly, nor fling about nor shock their systems with any sudden movement. No, they arose from slumber as gently as a soap bubble floats out from its pipe. Down into the gulch they trudged, still only half awake. Gradually their wills coagulated. They built a fire and boiled some tea and drank it from the fruit jars, and at last they settled in the sun on the front porch. The flaming flies made halos about their heads. Life took shape about them, the shape of yesterday and of tomorrow. Discussion began slowly, for each man treasured the little sleep he still possessed. From this time until well after noon, intellectual comradeship came into being. Then roofs were lifted, houses peered into, motives inspected, adventures recounted. Ordinarily their thoughts went first to Cornelia Ruiz, for it was a rare day and night during which Cornelia had not some curious and interesting adventure. And it was an unusual adventure from which no moral lesson could be drawn. The sun glistened in the pine needles. The earth smelled dry and good. The rose of Castile perfumed the world with its flowers. This was one of the best of times for the friends of Danny. The struggle for existence was remote. They sat in judgment on their fellows, judging not for morals, but for interest. Anyone having a good thing to tell saved it for recounting at this time. The big brown butterflies came to the rose and sat on the flowers and waved their wings slowly, as though they pumped honey out by wing power.

She accepted the tea he had brought, with a word of thanks and a charming smile, but could not resist the impulse to ask him if he was not ravished by Neroli’s voice. He replied promptly: ‘Not entirely. A little too much vibrato, don’t you agree?’ ‘Ah, I perceive that you are an expert!’ said Abby, controlling a quivering lip. ‘You must enlighten my ignorance, sir! What does that mean, if you please?’ ‘Well, my Latin is pretty rusty, but I should think it means to tremble,’ he said coolly. ‘She does, too, like a blancmanger. And much the same shape as one,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Oh, you dreadful creature!’ protested Mrs Grayshott, bubbling over. ‘I didn’t mean that, when I said I thought she had rather too much vibrato! You know I didn’t!’ ‘I thought she had too much of everything,’ he said frankly.

I retweet hot takes about bubble tea, MSG, BTS, and some drama series called The Untamed. I learn it’s important to be anti-PRC (that’s the People’s Republic of China) but pro-China (I’m not terribly sure how that’s different). I learn what “little pinks” and “tankies” are and make sure I don’t inadvertently retweet support for either. I decry what’s happening in Xinjiang. I Stand with Hong Kong. I start gaining dozens more followers a day once I’ve started vocalizing on these matters, and when I notice that many of my followers are people of color or have things like #BLM and #FreePalestine in their bios, I know I’m on the right track. And

Get out of your ideological bubble. If most of the people you talk with agree with you, you’re wasting your time. You need to engage with people who may disagree or who haven’t thought hard about the issues. Reach across to independents, even to Republicans and self-styled Tea Partiers. Find people who are willing to listen to the facts and are open to arguments and ideas, regardless of the label they apply to themselves. We need them.

But right now he wanted nothing more than a hot shower, a shave and a decent cup of tea. Though he'd have traded all of that for one more taste of Keeley. Knowing it irritated him had him scowling in the direction of her paddock. The minute he was cleaned up, he promised himself, the two of them would have a little conversation.Very little, he decided, before he got his hands on her again. And when he did, he was going to- The erotic image he conjured in his head burst like a bubble when he rounded the house and saw Keeley's mother kneeling at the flower bed. It was not the most comfortable thing to come across the mother when you'd been picturing the daughter naked. Then Adelia looked over at him, and he saw the tears on her cheeks. And his mind went blank. "Ah...Mrs. Grant." "Brian." Sniffling, she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. "I was doing some weeding. Just tidying up the beds here." She tugged at the cap on her head, then she lowered her hands, dropped back on her heels. "I'm sorry." "Ah..." Said that already, he thought, panicked. Say something else. He was never so helpless as he was with female tears.

On our third day at Gooden-Baden, as I lay abed waiting for my morning tea tray to arrive, Edward went for a soak in the medicinal tar pits. He never came back. All they found was his Bavarian hunting hat, floating on the surface of the tar, with those jaunty feathers sticking up and a sweet little sprig of edelweiss pinned to the hatband. A sticky trail of bubbles and a ruined hat. That was what was left of my husband. The hat was new, too; he had only just purchased it in the gift shop. . . .” The widow was overcome by emotion and had to pause. “Poor hat,” said Beowulf with feeling, perhaps missing the deeper meaning of the widow’s tears.

...one of the key psychological characteristics of the Tea Party is its oxymoronic love of authority figures coupled with a narcissistic celebration of its own “revolutionary” defiance. It’s this psychic weakness that allows this segment of the population to be manipulated by the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. The advantage is that their willingness to take orders has allowed them to organize effectively (try getting one hundred progressives at a meeting focused on anything). The downside is, they see absolutely nothing weird in launching a revolution based upon the ravings of a guy who’s basically a half-baked PR stooge shoveling propaganda coal for bloodsucking transnational behemoths like JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

As expected, Nevada’s summer heat was oppressive; temperatures under the desert sun bubbled around the 130-degree mark, which made it even harder for Monroe and almost everyone except [Clark] Gable to put in a full day’s work. Though he had a chauffeured limousine at his disposal, he drove himself back and forth to work in his silver Mercedes-Benz SC. He always arrived punctually at eight-forty-five A.M., bringing along gallon Thermoses of booze-spiked lemonade and iced tea to fortify himself. For the better part of the morning, he would sit around studying that day’s script pages or gabbing with the crew while waiting for the other principals to arrive. Though the delays were driving him mad, he tried not to show it. But one day while his writer-friend John Lee Mahin was visiting from Los Angeles, Gable told him, “It’s not professional, John, it’s stealing. It’s stealing the bank’s money and United Artists’ money. I don’t see how they’re going to get a picture out of this, but I’m stuck with it now, and I’m trying to do the best I can. It’s been hard on me.

Caramel Apple Bundt Cake For people. Cake 1½ cups flour 1 cup pecans 2 teaspoons baking powder ½ teaspoon baking soda 1½ teaspoons cinnamon ¾ teaspoon nutmeg ¾ teaspoon cloves ¼ teaspoon salt 2 medium apples, peeled and cored ½ cup sugar + extra 1¼ sticks (10 tablespoons) butter at room temperature + extra for greasing the pan 1 cup packed dark brown sugar 2 large eggs at room temperature 1 cup applesauce Preheat oven to 350ºF. Place the flour, pecans, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt in a food processor and pulse until the pecans are fine. Transfer the flour mixture to a bowl. Insert the grating disk and grate the apples. Take 1 tablespoon of sugar out of the plain sugar and set it aside. Cream the butter with the sugars. Beat in the eggs. Alternate adding the applesauce and the flour mixture until completely combined. Stir in the grated apples. Grease the Bundt pan liberally. Sprinkle the extra sugar on the butter. You may need another tablespoon of sugar for full coverage. Use a cooking spoon to ladle the batter into the Bundt pan and smooth the top. Bake 40 minutes or until it begins to pull away from the sides and a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to rest on a baking rack about 5 to 10 minutes. Loosen the edges, and flip onto the rack. When cool, top with caramel. Caramel 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 cup packed dark brown sugar ¼ cup heavy cream Place the ingredients in a deep microwave-safe dish (I used a 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup). Microwave in short bursts, stirring occasionally, until it bubbles up and the sugar melts. (You may find that you even like it if the sugar doesn’t melt!) Swedish Tea Ring For people.

HEART OF TEA DEVOTION Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urn Throws up a steamy column and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful ev ning in. WILLIAM COWPER Perhaps the idea of a tea party takes you back to childhood. Do you remember dressing up and putting on your best manners as you sipped pretend tea out of tiny cups and shared pretend delicacies with your friends, your parents, or your teddy bears? Were you lucky enough to know adults who cared enough to share tea parties with you? And are you lucky enough to have a little person with whom you could share a tea party today? Is there a little girl inside you who longs for a lovely time of childish imagination and "so big" manners? It could be that the mention of teatime brings quieter memories-cups of amber liquid sipped in peaceful solitude on a big porch, or friendly confidences shared over steaming cups. So many of my own special times of closeness-with my husband, my children, my friends-have begun with putting a kettle on to boil and pulling out a tea tray. But even if you don't care for tea-if you prefer coffee or cocoa or lemonade or ice water, or if you like chunky mugs better than gleaming silver or delicate china, or if you find the idea of traditional tea too formal and a bit intimidating-there's still room for you at the tea table, and I think you would love it there! I have shared tea with so many people-from business executives to book club ladies to five-year-old boys. And I have found that few can resist a tea party when it is served with the right spirit. You see, it's not tea itself that speaks to the soul with such a satisfying message-although I must confess that I adore the warmth and fragrance of a cup of Earl Grey or Red Zinger. And it's not the teacups themselves that bring such a message of beauty and serenity and friendship-although my teacups do bring much pleasure. It's not the tea, in other words, that makes teatime special, it's the spirit of the tea party. It's what happens when women or men or children make a place in their life for the

A long time ago, I collected the flower petals stained with my first blood; I thought there was something significant about that, there was importance in all the little moments of experience, because when you live forever, the first times matter. The first time you bleed, first time you cry — I don’t remember that — first time you see your wings, because new things defile you, purity chips away. your purity. nestled flowers in your belly, waiting to be picked. do you want innocence back? small and young smiles that make your eyes squint and cheeks flare the feeling of your face dripping down onto the grass, the painted walls you tore down, the roads you chipped away, they’ll eat away at you, the lingering feelings of a warm hand on your waist, the taps of your feet as you dance, the beats of your timbrel.’ ‘and now you are like Gods, sparkling brilliant with jewelry that worships you, and you’re splitting in order to create.’ ‘The tosses of your wet hair, the rushes of chariots speeding past, the holy, holy, holy lord god of hosts, the sweetness of a strawberry, knocks against the window by your head, the little tunes of your pipes, the cuts sliced into your fingers by uptight cacti fruits, the brisk scent of a sea crashing into the rocks, the sweat of wrestling, onions, cumin, parsley in a metal jug, mud clinging to your skin, a friendly mouth on your cheeks and forehead, chimes, chirps of chatter in the bazaar, amen, amen, amen, the plump fish rushing to take the bread you toss, scraping of a carpenter, the hiss of chalk, the wisps of clouds cradling you as you nap, the splashes of water in a hot pool, the picnic in a meadow, the pounding of feet that are chasing you, the velvet of petals rustling you awake, a giant water lily beneath you, the innocent kiss, the sprawl of the universe reflected in your eyes for the first time, the bloody wings that shred out of your back, the apples in orchards, a basket of stained flowers, excited chants of a colosseum audience, the heat of spinning and bouncing to drums and claps, the love braided into your hair, the trickles of a piano, smell of myrrh, the scratches of a spoon in a cup, the coarseness of a carpet, the stringed instruments and trumpets, the serene smile of not knowing, the sleeping angel, the delight of a creator, the amusement of gossip and rumors, the rumbling laughter between shy singing, the tangling of legs, squash, celery, carrot, and chayote, the swirled face paint, the warmth of honey in your tea, the timid face in the mirror, mahogany beams, the embrace of a bed of flowers, the taste of a grape as its fed to you, the lip smacks of an angel as you feed him a raspberry, the first dizziness of alcohol, the cool water and scent of natron and the scratch of the rock you beat your dirty clothes against, the strain of your arms, the columns of an entrance, the high ceilings of a dark cathedral, the boiling surface of bubbling stew, the burn of stained-glass, the little joyous jump you do seeing bread rise, the silky taste of olive oil, the lap of an angel humming as he embroiders a little fox into his tunic, the softness of browned feathers lulling you to sleep, the weight of a dozen blankets and pillows on your small bed, the proud smile on the other side of a window in a newly-finished building, the myrtle trees only you two know about, the palm of god as he fashions you from threads of copper, his praises, his love, his kiss to your hair, your father.

But in 1936, weak and weary and dying of cancer, Mellon met FDR for tea at the White House and told him that he wanted to create a National Gallery of Art in the nation’s capital that would rival the best galleries

I felt my stomach rumble. We had been eating little bits of things, cake and mince pies, all day, but although they were delicious I was longing for butter and toast, or potatoes with a thick stew. I wanted the certainty of a proper meal, proof that ordinary life was carrying on outside our strange little bubble.

Someone nudged her elbow, interrupting her reverie. “Hello? Anyone there?” The question came from Rylann’s roommate, Rae Mendoza, who was seated at her right. “I’m here. Just…picturing myself at the pool.” Rylann tried to hold on to the mirage for a few moments longer. “It’s sunny and seventy-five degrees. I’ve got some kind of tropical drink with one of those little umbrellas in it, and I’m reading a book—one I don’t have to highlight or outline in the margins.” “They make those kinds of books?” “If memory serves..." “I hate to burst the bubble on your daydream, but I’m pretty sure they don’t allow alcoholic drinks at IMPE,” Rae said, referring to the university’s Intramural Physical Education building, which housed said pool. Rylann waved off such pesky details. “I’ll throw a mai tai in my College of Law thermos and tell people that it’s iced tea. If campus security gives me any trouble, I’ll scare them off with my quasi-legal credentials and remind them of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibitions against illegal searches and seizures.” “Wow. Do you know how big of a law school geek you just sounded like?” Unfortunately, she did. “Do you think any of us will ever be normal again?” Rae considered this. “I’m told that somewhere around third year, we lose the urge to cite the Constitution in everyday conversation.” “That’s promising,” Rylann said. “But seeing how you’re more of a law geek than most, it might take you longer.” “Remember that conversation last night when I said I was going to miss you this summer? I take it back

Inside an H Mart complex, there will be some kind of food court, an appliance shop, and a pharmacy. Usually, there's a beauty counter where you can buy Korean makeup and skin-care products with snail mucin or caviar oil, or a face mask that vaguely boasts "placenta." (Whose placenta? Who knows?) There will usually be a pseudo-French bakery with weak coffee, bubble tea, and an array of glowing pastries that always look much better than they taste. My local H Mart these days is in Elkins Park, a town northeast of Philadelphia. My routine is to drive in for lunch on the weekends, stock up on groceries for the week, and cook something for dinner with whatever fresh bounty inspires me. The H Mart in Elkins Park has two stories; the grocery is on the first floor and the food court is above it. Upstairs, there is an array of stalls serving different kinds of food. One is dedicated to sushi, one is strictly Chinese. Another is for traditional Korean jjigaes, bubbling soups served in traditional earthenware pots called ttukbaegis, which act as mini cauldrons to ensure that your soup is still bubbling a good ten minutes past arrival. There's a stall for Korean street food that serves up Korean ramen (basically just Shin Cup noodles with an egg cracked in); giant steamed dumplings full of pork and glass noodles housed in a thick, cakelike dough; and tteokbokki, chewy, bite-sized cylindrical rice cakes boiled in a stock with fish cakes, red pepper, and gochujang, a sweet-and-spicy paste that's one of the three mother sauces used in pretty much all Korean dishes. Last, there's my personal favorite: Korean-Chinese fusion, which serves tangsuyuk---a glossy, sweet-and-sour orange pork---seafood noodle soup, fried rice, and black bean noodles.

Santa Firenza was a blacktopped hellscape of bubble tea shops and strip-mall nail salons, where feral children worshipped professional video-game streamers. The major cultural contribution of this part of the country was recording yourself dancing alongside your car while it rolled forward with no one driving it.

He flashed her a smile that could make panties melt, according to the reviewer who hadn't liked his movie but had started #StarringRyanKwoksAbs. And Lindsay was not immune. Her mouth opened and she released a shaky breath. He watched her breasts move up and down beneath that rather tight tank top. This was almost as bad as when she'd wrapped her lips around that thick bubble tea straw last week. An erection would be inconvenient now, but it was happening anyway.

I watch a couple more. My favorites are the cultural ones, because they have the strange feeling of being instruction manuals on becoming whatever ethnicity the person in the video is. One of my favorites has over six million views and combines the what-I-eat genres of "in a week," "Japanese food," "realistic," "teen," and "ASMR." I watch an entire twenty-five minutes of a girl in Tokyo with dyed wine-red-fading-into-pink hair eating sausages, toast, a Japanese corn dog made with hotcake mix dipped in ketchup, demae hot sesame ramen with an egg plopped in, pizza, stir-fried udon, seaweed salad and barley rice, tapioca and black tea ice cream, soy-glazed salmon on okayu, pearl milk bubble tea. Each time she eats, the microphone hones in on the sounds of her eating---slurping, chewing, crunching. When she drinks her bubble tea, there's a loud pop as the straw goes through the lid, and the sound of gulping. Gulp, gulp, gulp. I realize that I'm gulping along to the video, imagining that the bubble tea is blood.

I’ll binge-watch Netflix and eat out every day; sushi and bubble tea is in my immediate future. It’s the little things in life we have to continue to appreciate.

As I see it, I’ve got three immediate options: pitch in at the restaurant, scour the classifieds, or file for unemployment.” “Why don’t you Marie Kondo it?” Celine said. “Which is?” She lifted her eyebrow. “Find employment that sparks joy.

The heaven of modern humanity is indeed shattered in the Cyclopean struggle for wealth and power. The world is groping in the shadow of egotism and vulgarity. Knowledge is bought through a bad conscience, benevolence practiced for the sake of utility. The East and West, like two dragons tossed in a sea of ferment, in vain strive to regain the jewel of life.. Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.

Everything always worked out for my glamorous cousin. It seemed like she’d been gifted a tailwind all her thirty-two years of life.

Celine had the long-awaited-for-child status, which meant her parents catered to my cousin’s every whim,

It is June. I am in Shanghai and I am not tired. June in Shanghai is for cold bubble tea, for kissing, for three-yuan ice creams and misty rain mixing with sweat on skin.

It is a truth universally acknowledged,that a single woman in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a book.

His only human encounter was with Pagan d'Aumesty, one of the Earl of Oxney's more peculiar relatives, who was wandering along High Knock Channel poking vaguely at the sides of the stream with a stick. Gareth halted. "Good morning, sir." "Eh? Oh. You're, uh..." "Gareth Inglis. I came to tea with the Earl in March." "No. No, that's not it." "I beg your pardon?" "I'll have it in a minute. Let me see, you are—" "Gareth Inglis," Gareth said with extreme clarity. "Ah, I have it! You are Gareth Inglis," Pagan informed him. "Are you looking for your father? He's just around here, I believe." "I...I'm afraid he's dead, sir." "Just around here." Pagan gestured in the vague direction of the Isle. "I saw him—now, was it today?" "No, because he's dead?" Somehow that had become a question. "He's dead," Gareth repeated more firmly. "He's been dead for months." "Are you sure?" Gareth dug his fingernails into his palm against the wholly inappropriate laugh that wanted to bubble up. "Quite sure, yes." "Hmph. That seems very odd of him." "I do apologise," Gareth said hopelessly. "We had been discussing my researches. I wanted to tell him about the progress of the project. I wondered why he had not visited." There was a distinct suggestion that Sir Hugo's death was insufficient excuse. "Really, it is most inconvenient. I wished him to assist in illustrating my theory." "What theory is that, sir?" Gareth asked, out of politeness that he was very rapidly to regret, and then stood subject to ten minutes of monologue on Romano-British Mithraic mysteries before he was forced to remember an urgent appointment.

Her entire future would be attending balls down in London and preparing menus for her hunsband's guests at Almont House. If her husband permitted it, she might be allowed to hold a salon and invite prominent thinkers into their parlor, but they would be the men of discovery and action. It would be her guests who came with their stories and ideas. Hazel would be seated neatly on a divan, listening. That was the closest she would come to the world of science - the edge of the bubble, permitted to listen and serve tea and smile gamely and offer her thoughts only if they were disguised as harmless witticisms. Her path was finite and certain. Educating her in anatomy would be like teaching a pig to read before the slaughter.

He wanted the teahouse to blend in with nature and become more of a backdrop for the tea ceremony, so he helped influence its redesign. Over time, the teahouse became a simple hut set in a garden with mud and plaster walls, a thatched roof, a bamboo lattice ceiling, tatami floors, and small paper-covered windows. It became a refuge in the city meant to echo a mountain retreat, where samurai from warring clans, lowly merchants, and even the emperor could come together on equal footing and focus on nothing more than the sensory pleasures of the tea ceremony, such as the gentle bubbling of the tea water on the brazier, the seasonal flower arrangement in the alcove, and the smell of the particular incense chosen to represent the time of year.

The sun had already turned the blue-black asphalt into soft, bubbly patches and heat rose in waves that seemed to breathe.

I’ve lived in greater China off and on for more than a dozen years. I have taken years of Mandarin lessons. I can recite a Tang dynasty poem. Occasionally I drink bubble tea. But my understanding of China ends at bu tai qing chu. In a literal sense, the phrase does mean “not very clear.” But it has a linguistic flexibility. Each time I grasp a new context for bu tai qing chu, it turns up in a new way. It means at least these things: I can’t help you. I will not help you. I don’t want to tell you. I’ll get in trouble. You don’t deserve to know. I’m moving on now.

I couldn't do anything about it right then, though, so I did what all good southern girls do: I had a glass of tea and postponed my nervous breakdown for later.

Kimi, I think it’s a landslide!” Gracie cried out. Small rocks joined the pebbles and Kimi flicked her wand. A giant bubble appeared around the goat. The rocks and pebbles bounced off it, keeping everyone safe. A few seconds later, the kid landed gently beside its father. He nuzzled it happily. “Now I’m happy that the chief troll threw my bubble tea this way,” said Kimi. “If she hadn’t, we would never have been able to save the baby goat.

The powers that be don’t want people thinking about any of these things. If the people must politick, then let them do it in the proper arena, in elections between Wall Street–sponsored Democrats and Wall Street–sponsored Republicans. They want half the country lined up like the Tea Partiers against overweening government power, and the other half, the Huffington Post crowd, railing against corporate excess. But don’t let the two sides start thinking about the bigger picture and wondering if the real problem might be a combination of the two.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a book.