Did you know that the world has very few words for the best drink?
Tea and cha
But why? Lots of other things have absolutely loads of weird and wonderful names across different languages.
Take the butterfly. I mean the papillon. No, the schmetterling. Or is it the babochka?
….Kipepeo?
But why?
Well, butterflies live all over the place and have a very varied cultural significance to different people.
For example, the German word "schmetterling" derives from the word for cream (schmetten) and butterflies were thought to be attracted to dairy products.
Fun fact one: You often see butterflies around blacksmith’s forges because they need certain minerals present in coal that they can’t get out of nectar.
Why are we talking about butterflies again?
Oh yeah, TEA!
Unlike butterflies, tea isn’t from almost everywhere on earth, so humans had ample opportunity to name it according to its cultural significance long before we started trading with each other.
The Camellia sinensis plant, on the other hand, is native to the Yunnan Province in southwestern China and the surrounding areas, like parts of northern Myanmar and northeastern India.
It thrives in the warm, humid climate of southern China and remained isolated due to a lack of movement of seeds and plants before human intervention.
Unlike those surprisingly hardy farfalla (Italian for butterfly).
Fun fact two: Your author just learned that the pasta of the same name doesn’t come from the Italian for ‘bowtie for an Action Man’.
Tea by sea
The word "tea" and its variations, such as thé in French and tee in Afrikaans, owe their global spread to maritime trade. This version of the word originated in the Min Nan dialect of Chinese, spoken in coastal regions like Fujian and Taiwan, where the Chinese character for tea (茶) is pronounced te.
These areas were key trading hubs during the 17th century, when the Dutch East India Company became the primary exporter of tea to Europe.
Dutch traders brought the novel leaves to European ports, introducing the term te to languages across the continent. This linguistic journey explains why most European languages have a word for tea that resembles the English "tea".
Coastal trade routes also carried this version of the word to parts of Africa and South Asia, further expanding its reach.
Cha by land
The "cha" version of the word tea, including chay in Persian and chai in Swahili, spread primarily via overland trade routes like the Silk Road.
Originating from the Sinitic root cha, this term traversed Central Asia and Persia, where it became chay, before reaching South Asia, the Middle East, and even sub-Saharan Africa.
The overland spread of tea began over 2,000 years ago, as evidenced by archaeological discoveries along the Silk Road.
This trade route not only facilitated the exchange of goods but also shaped the linguistic landscape of tea-drinking cultures.
Even languages in East Asia, such as Japanese and Korean, adopted their terms for tea (cha) early on, likely before its westward spread into Persian and beyond.
Interestingly, some regions developed entirely unique words for tea because the plant grows naturally there. For example, in Burmese, tea leaves are called lakphak.
Fun fact three: A popular Burmese dish called laphet thoke (tea leaf salad) uses fermented or pickled tea leaves as its star ingredient.
Burmese tea leaf salad
Final thoughts
It’s easy to fall into the European bias that globalisation only really happened in early modernity but the word “cha” is a lovely little linguistic marker of how cultural exchange through commerce was flourishing well before the age of maritime exploration.