Tea World

Lesson 001

Evolution of Tea's Name

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The Beverage and its name are given to the world by the Chinese. Tea which was used initially as a medicinal and subsequently as a recreational drink in China with a history spanning  around 5,000 years (6000 years as per a recent study)  of use, it has now become the most  popular non alcoholic beverage  across the globe. The word “tea” has derived from ‘te’(tey)  of Chinese Fukien dialect. The Chinese ideographic word for tea was Romanised as Ch’a, pounced as ‘Chah’ in Cantonese.  From one or the other of these two sources, the name has found its way with little or no alteration into practically every modern language as follows:

Japanese-Cha; Russian-Chai; Arabian- Shai; Turkish-Chay; Portuguese-cha; Persian-cha; Hindi-chai; Urdu-cha;  Italian (obsolete) –cia, Bulgarian- chi; English-tea; Dutch-thee, German-thee; Danish-te; Malayan-te or the; Latin-thea; Sinhalese-thay; Tamil-tey, Finnish-tee; Yiddish-thee; Norwagian-te; Latvian-teja; Czecho Slovakian-te, Hungarian-te,Korean-ta; Frence-the,Italian-te;Spanish-te.

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