The Master in his lair
Was smelling the thin air
What he should do next
Was the big question.

He had done many
Nature, flavoured…
He had more than twenty
In his quest savoured.

How many dark nights
Did he look at the stars
To find a tea for tsars
Or for the not knights?

How many dark nights
With several teas
To fight the slight breezes,
Trap of so many nights?

Wondering if he had
One more time to go
To find the thing to add
The thing to make it glow.

He had met the Dragon,
More than one tea wagon
Also the Rising Sun
But all was overdone.

In need of new ideas
To create more teas
To bring a lot of joys
To all the girls and boys.

He looked at the walls
With all the tins and cans
All taken by his hands
In place he recalls.

The magic was in them
Also in the combo
Creating a true gem
To make people blow.

Having found his idea
He took a bit of this
Mixed it with that and this
In his quest to find tea.

From The First Tea War: a History

The following extract is a transcription in modern English of a poem found in the wreckage of the HMS Aeolus, following the first border skirmishes between Great Britain and China during the First Tea War

O you, Robert Fortune,
For Queen, the City and Country,
You went in a far away country,
To look for the bringer of joy and fortune.

A lady called Camilla,
That turns mere water
Into a drink subtler
Than the mighty Mocha.

When you left with the fog behind you
For the Kingdom of the Sons of Heaven,
Did you see the men that would follow you
To the Greater Heaven?

In the middle of still unexplored mountains,
Looking for the tea fountains,
Claws and flames against steel and powder.
Each trying to bring order.

Our mighty ships in the sky,
Big, shielded and moving so slowly,
Facing the true masters of the sky,
Beautiful, yet agile and deadly.

Several times, did we face them
These mighty beasts stronger than a boar
But they were just glowing in the sun like a gem
Meaning “Cry “Havoc!”, and let slip the dogs of war”.