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

Post by franey » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

rkachowski wrote: post #88

gumby wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Wikipedia section needs a rewrite. It does mention that that usage is a class marker but then conflates it with the pastry-and-tea afternoon snack practice of upper classes. They are two radically disjoint uses. The origin of the “tea” being the term for evening meal are pretty well attested to lie the poverty of the English lower classes who could not afford much more than a cup of tea in the evening. I grew up…

I'd never heard of this before. Growing up in rural Scotland, meals were always "Breakfast", "Dinner" and "Tea". There was sometimes confusion with other people over whether dinner was a midday or evening meal, but I'd never thought much of it until now.

Post by jawilson2 » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 1:39 PM UTC

rkachowski wrote: post #88

gumby wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Wikipedia section needs a rewrite. It does mention that that usage is a class marker but then conflates it with the pastry-and-tea afternoon snack practice of upper classes. They are two radically disjoint uses. The origin of the “tea” being the term for evening meal are pretty well attested to lie the poverty of the English lower classes who could not afford much more than a cup of tea in the evening. I grew up…

I'd never heard of this before. Growing up in rural Scotland, meals were always "Breakfast", "Dinner" and "Tea". There was sometimes confusion with other people over whether dinner was a midday or evening meal, but I'd never thought much of it until now.

Post by hashmush » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 1:43 PM UTC

kryachkov wrote: post #74

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

Post by gcb0 » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 1:46 PM UTC

angrygoat wrote: post #89

At least in Australia, "chai" is on sale in cafes meaning Masala chai, a mix of leaf tea and Indian spices and herbs. And then you've got the "chai latte", like a regular latte but with "chai" instead of espresso. Amusing weirding of language - it should really be a "masala"!

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 1:52 PM UTC

_0nac wrote: post #95

dwyer wrote: post #93

I'm no Chinese expert, so somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I've found that the Chinese word 茶 (cha) doesn't always necessarily mean tea, but can refer generically to a number of different brewed drinks. e.g. barley tea (大麥茶), ginger tea (薑茶), golden oats tea (燕麥茶), etc. all of which translate to tea, but often contain no tea leaves. It may seem like a nitpick, but when you're in China and order what you expect t…

Nit: Western (black) tea is 紅茶 hongcha , lit. "red tea". Chinese black tea refers to fermented teas like pu-erh, which are not the same thing.