Tea from an Empty Cup is a 1998 cyberpunk novel by American writer Pat Cadigan.

A virtual version of Japan has become a sort of Holy Grail for a core group of artificial reality addicts.

Artificial Reality, or AR, like "post-apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty" has become immensely popular in an increasingly dreary overcrowded world, not just as a game, but as a way of life.

She therefore decides to investigate this young man's life within the artificial realities he frequented, even though the legal precedents already established mean that nothing she discovers is admissible as evidence because "Everything is a Lie" in AR.

In Tea from an Empty Cup's interwoven storyline, Yuki, a young ethnically Japanese woman is desperately looking for her boyfriend Tom, whom she fears has taken up with a mysterious and notorious woman named Joy Flower, becoming one of "Joy's Boyz", about whom a lot of nasty rumours circulate.