The article explores the semiotics of tea in the Russian literature of the late 18th — first half of the 19th cc. and traces the origins of the tea tradition as part of social and household lifestyle. The study analyzes contextualized mentions of tea drinking in the works by V. Narezhny, M. Chulkov, and A. Izmaylov, positing that it is only in fiction that the ‘tea storyline’ eventually receives specialized means of expression and memorable stylistic features as it becomes semantically conceptualized. The tea theme is viewed through the lens of 18th-c. prose and 19th-c. memoirs from before 1851, while its poetic representation in daily life is illustrated by A. Pushkin’s works, where its recurrent characteristics crystallize and gain aesthetic meaning. Mekhtiev suggests, for example, that the metaphoric tea subject spans phenomena as contrasting as idyll and tragedy, as if upholding the perennial quartet of birth — life — death — resurrection.