means A hot or cold drink made by steeping the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant in water, or more loosely any herbal infusion drunk the same way — and, in slang, juicy gossip.

from From the Min Chinese word for the leaf, te, picked up by Dutch traders at the coastal port of Amoy and carried into English as 'tea.' Inland, the same character was pronounced cha — which is why languages that learned of the drink over land routes (Russian chai, Hindi chai, Portuguese chá) say 'cha,' while those that learned by Dutch sea trade say some version of 'tea.' One leaf, two great pronunciations, sorted neatly by whether it arrived by ship or by caravan. The 'gossip' sense is 20th-century slang, said to come from Black drag culture where 'spilling the T' meant sharing the truth (T for 'truth'), later softening into the cup of tea we sip while listening.