The Word TEA

    

The Word TEA:

Where does it arrive from?
At last something is starting to make sense to me, the word CHA.  After many years of watching English television  and wondering how the word CHA had any similarity to TEA. I have found out why, as you will see very soon.
It comes from the Mandarin word CHA, but the central coast & SE Asia pronounce it TE.  So both words have found their way into English with TEA being the most popular

Also, the word CHA has now many derivatives, hence the word CHAI.

We (English speaking) use the word Tea because we acquired our tea from the  "te-derived" Min.  Whilst the CHA meant people derived their tea from "cha-derived" Cantonese and Mandarin.

For more information go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea where there are very interesting Etymological observations.