the.com/tea
The world's second-most consumed drink after water, brewed from one stubbornly versatile shrub.
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.
- single plant
- Black, green, white all come from Camellia sinensis
- war fuel
- Britain smuggled opium to balance its tea addiction
- accidental discovery
- Legend says leaves blew into an emperor's boiling water
- caffeine punch
- Dry leaves hold more caffeine than coffee beans
- boston rebellion
- Colonists dumped 342 chests into the harbor
darjeeling — indian mountain region producing the 'champagne of teas' since the 1850s
pu-erh — fermented tea from yunnan province, china, aged like wine for decades
matcha — japanese powdered green tea ceremonially whisked since the 12th century