The Real Reason Tea Only Has Two Names

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SOURCES & FURTHER READING

[NameExplain]

What is the word for tea on your language?

[zybridhawiwi]

In Polish, there is a catch: tea is called "herbata", with a Latin root related simply to herbs... quite strange considering the leafy appearance of tea.

[GumSkyloard]

"Tea if by sea, Cha if by land"

Portugal: Hah, that's funny mate.

[fjfjfjfjfjfjfj]

Japanese tea is actually called cha. “O” of Ocha is something like a prefix, witch add politeness or respect.

[BlackTomorrowMusic]

This was fascinating. Thank you for being such a great tea-cha.

[Ray_Vun]

western europe: we're gonna call this hot drink "tea"
portugal: don't tell me what to do

[luisandrade]

In Portugal we always learned that the word tea was an acronyms to avoid taxes. This was rather anti climatic

[Menion]

Ocha in Japanese, the “o” is respectful languages that is often used on foods and some are so common that they become their own words. Sushi is often osushi, although it is still just called sushi as well. Ocha is always Ocha though.

[VeraDonna]

Two curiosities about the only western european country who calls it "chá":

- It was a portuguese queen (Catherine of Braganza, Charles' II wife) who made tea a popular drink in the UK.

- Portugal has the oldest and largest tea plantation in Europe, in the middle of the Atlantic, in the Azores islands.

[anthonyli]

Chinese linguistic theories state that all ch- sounds in Chinese languages originate from t- sounds. So in theory, nearly all names of tea (in general) come from "tea" (the t- sound) itself.
Yes, and so 茶 and 荼 should originally have more similar pronunciations in the past.
Cantonese pronunciations of 茶 and 荼 are "cha" and "tow" btw

[me]

The Hindi isn't che, but chai, there's a dipthong. But the point stands.

And in Japanese, it's still "cha". "Ocha" is a more formal way of saying it.

[felipeberlim]

As a Brazilian, I’ve always wanted to know why the name for “tea” in Portuguese was so different from other European languages, specially Spanish, a language with common roots to my mother tongue. Thank you very much!

[Deadbass_]

Everybody else: chá or te
Poland: *h e r b a t a*

[treenhol]

In Kazakh language it's "Шай" (pronounced like Shai). Also, I know that in Russian it's just "Чай "(Chay)

[nekomarulupin]

Interesting fact about Japan: They use both depending on the variety. Cha is usually for tea from Japan or China, while tea is used for herbal or western varieties.

[UltiBlue]

When Catherine of Braganza arrived in England, she brought a lot of tea, as she loved it.
The tea came in boxes of the company: Transporte Ervas Aromáticas (portuguese for Transport of Aromatic Erbs), marked as T.E.A. and the british thought that was how it was called.

Just a fun legend I heard.

[lapprentice]

In Vietnamese, bordered south of China, we have both of those words in our language. We have "Trà" in our southern Vietnam dialect and "Chè" in our northern Vietnam Dialect. Both mean Tea.

[gan]

‘Tay’ (IPA: teɪ) is the actual pronunciation in the Hokkien (Fujian) region in China, where tea was traded through the ports there.

I believe ‘tay’ is an older word than ‘cha’ because the Hokkien language diverged, alongside Middle Chinese, from Old Chinese. On the other hand, Mandarin language diverged from Middle Chinese. In fact, the creation of the Chinese character for tea mentioned in this video came from the Tang Dynasty that used Middle Chinese. After the fall of the Tang, the heir established the Min kingdom in the Hokkien region.

The use of the word ‘teh’ for tea in ‘parts of Asia’, i.e. South East Asia, could not be credited to Dutch rule. The Chinese have long been in around the region, hundreds of years before the arrival of the Europeans.

Somehow, somewhere, along the way the pronunciation of ‘tay’ got ‘bastardised’ to become tea in English.

[TheLucidDreamer]

Tea and Cha are both the same character 茶 in Standard Chinese (literary form of both the Minnan language "tea" originates and "cha" from Mandarin)

[AlvinZorDi]

In The Philippines, which is right by the south eastern coast of China, we call it TSAA, pronounced like cha-a 🇵🇭 🍵