Origin of the word tea

A little tidbit about the origin of the word tea and how we came about calling tea – tea.

The English word tea derived from the Mandarin Chinese word cha or che. The Chinese Amoy dialect from the Fujian Province named che, te or tu (pronounced tay). The Fujian Province (one of the largest tea regions still today) first exported tea to the Dutch and the Portuguese.

The Portuguese, kept the word cha for tea along with the Greek, Japanese, Korean and Hindi languages. Its shai in Arabic and chai in Russian.

The Dutch and German word for tea is thee. In French its the’. In Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish and Hungarian its te.

Essentially, good information for tea loving world travelers - a little information that will help in the quest for tea where ever you are someone will understand.