The passion of steeped leaves and stewed broth is a philter that triumphs in our veins. It is our heritage, it is our religion, it is the glory of our being. It is our honour to show the rest of the uncivilized world how a refined and educated society operates. Nothing can be done without tea. For a thing to be done right and to be done well, a hand must be furnished with a cup filled to the brim with the finest vintage of dried and simmered vegetation. There is no other way, I tell you. For a Marridon-born man not to like tea is immoral. It makes him low, shows him to be wholly vulgar and unable to appreciate and welter in all the rapture that such scandal-broth can supply. A sniveling guttersnipe might not like tea, but a knight, a member of the highest order, a banner of Marridonian heraldry, cannot dislike it. It is folly to think so, absolute humbuggery. You are one of the high boughs of Marridon’s ancient tree, sir knight. You are practically born with leaves to steep, to stew, to swelter, to sip. It is almost treasonous not to like tea. I am considered a recluse amongst Marridon’s high society, and even I understand why I must like tea. It is the drink of the thinking man, to be deliberated over and deliciated, to be relished and reveled in, that all its secrets of higher cogitation might be extricated and beloved. One must immerse himself in the distillation if he is to properly understand it. To drink tea ponderously is all the learned Marridonian should ever aspire to.
— Michelle Franklin
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