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Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

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Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#72
post #50

Portugal imported tea from India way before Macau. That was the whole thing of the sea route to India...

Are you sure? I thought the English brought tea to India after stealing it from China in the 19th Century.[1]

Was there another source in India which the Portuguese had earlier access to? My initial cursory investigation via Wikipedia seems to indicate China as the initial source.[2] I'd be really interested, from an historical point of view, if this wasn't the case.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3081255-for-all-the-tea-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tea#Portugal_and_It...

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poland represent! We also have a word for "woman" that is unlike any other Slavic language. Polish goes its own way.

Other slavic languages (croatian here) also have that word, similar. It means something different though. It meant (that) something different in polish too. "A bit" offensive, haha.

If you mean "kobieta", from what I understand, it used to be offensive until about the 19th century, but the etymology of it is unclear and contested. I have no idea by what process it ceased to be offensive.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#75
post #50

Portugal imported tea from India way before Macau. That was the whole thing of the sea route to India...

Are you sure? I thought the English brought tea to India after stealing it from China in the 19th Century.[1] Was there another source in India which the Portuguese had earlier access to? My initial cursory investigation via Wikipedia seems to indicate China as the initial source.[2] I'd be really interested, from an historical point of view, if this wasn't the case. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3081255-fo…

Charles II, after losing the Battle of Worcester, fled to Europe where he stayed for nine years [1][2]. There he discovered tea. He also discovered Catherine of Braganza, a tea drinker (like most of the Portuguese nobility) whom he married [3].

In 1660 the British monarchy was restored. Charles and Catherine then introduced the custom of tea drinking to the British court.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_England

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_England

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Braganza

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#76

In Swedish ”te” is what is usually refeerrd as a tea (in England for example). Herbal tea is ”chai” in Swedish

I think “chai” is not really a Swedish word, but a word recently imported by the cafes, signifying some kind of tea-based beverage.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#77
post #71

Any Vietnamese know why Vietnam has "tea" in the middle and "cha" in north or south on the map? I spend 2 months in the north then lived for a few month in Saigon. I never came across people using anything other than "trà" (cha).

Vietnamese uses both "chè" and "trà". But for some reasons, for things like iced tea, bubble tea we only use "trà". For the traditional tea that serves in a teapot, either is fine.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#78
post #71

Any Vietnamese know why Vietnam has "tea" in the middle and "cha" in north or south on the map? I spend 2 months in the north then lived for a few month in Saigon. I never came across people using anything other than "trà" (cha).

What did you mean saying "tea in the middle"? I'm quite sure we Vietnamese only use "chè" or "trà", both variants are basically "cha" I think.

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#79
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely that influence comes from when India was part of the British Empire. Lots of Indian-derived words made it into British English.

Pyjamas and bungalow are examples of borrow words from India. India has rather a lot of languages and I don't think you can lump them all into "Indian". "Char" as in "cuppa char?" is the usual spelling (would you like a cup of tea?) According to this: http://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/cup-char it is likely that "char" is derived from Chinese (another country with rather a lot of languages - would the real Chinese…

Caravan Thug Juggernaut Guru Avatar Karma Nirvana Cheetah Jungle

Are just some Indian words loaned by English.

Two interesting words that Punjabi/Hindi has loaned from French is Savon (sabun) and Cartouche (Kartoos).

Re: Tea if by sea, cha if by land: Why the world only has two words for tea

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? I thought the English brought tea to India after stealing it from China in the 19th Century.[1] Was there another source in India which the Portuguese had earlier access to? My initial cursory investigation via Wikipedia seems to indicate China as the initial source.[2] I'd be really interested, from an historical point of view, if this wasn't the case. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3081255-fo…

Charles II, after losing the Battle of Worcester, fled to Europe where he stayed for nine years [1][2]. There he discovered tea. He also discovered Catherine of Braganza, a tea drinker (like most of the Portuguese nobility) whom he married [3]. In 1660 the British monarchy was restored. Charles and Catherine then introduced the custom of tea drinking to the British court. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I…

You're all way off.

A pair of Gauls and a Breton (by pure coincidence) brought tea to England.

It's all documented in history books such as this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_in_Britain

:)

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