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

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

#131

Post by lttlrck » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 1:54 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.

I grew up in England and it was similar. Growing up Dinner was the hot meal using taken in the middle of the day either at school (dinner ladies), or at work (I imagined hot meals servers in factories or canteens). And tea (teatime!) was cold/lighter possibly taken with tea, essentially late afternoon tea, followed by supper later in the evening. Pretty sure it’s still like this in many places.

At some point dinner transitioned to lunch and teatime to dinner for us.

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

#132

Post by schemathings » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #103

_0nac wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The friendly article notes that both Japan and Korea likely acquired the word long before the Silk Road. Relevant random factoid: it's possible to tell when many Chinese words were imported into Japan based on the pronunciation, which varies based on where the Chinese capital (and hence the ruling class dialect) happened to be. See "Onyomi" under https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji .

Yeah I am aware, I speak Japanese.

And if you're an American in Japan speaking to a Japanese who speaks English they say Chinese alphabet (a literal translation) rather than Kanji (based on my 6 trips there)

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

#133

Post by emptyfile » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 2:04 PM UTC

gerhardi wrote: post #59

Almost the same goes for the word Restaurant. Everywhere in the world it's almost the same - except in Russia it is pectopah! :)

It's also "restoran" in pretty much every Slavic language AFAIK.

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

#134

Post by somewhatoff » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

signal11 wrote: post #100

rkachowski wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks, that was very informative. I was always told that dinner (from "dine") is the main meal of the day. So if you have a 'fancy' afternoon meal that can be your dinner (e.g. we usually do Christmas dinner between 3 and 4). I wonder if HN knows of a linguistic map for meal names, it appears that these words shift meaning a lot. EDIT: I thought this was interesting -- "Harvard's Dialect Survey had the question, 'Wh…

The slightly snooty Daily Telegraph style guide:

"Christmas lunch is what most of our readers would eat, not Christmas dinner. Use the latter only if referring specifically to an evening meal."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/about-us/style-book/143530...

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

#135

Post by mziel » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 2:06 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.

Interestingly pu-erh is often referred to as "red tea" in Western countries.

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

#136

Post by benhsu » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

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…

There are similar words in English. My favorite example is Pudding, which can mean anything from black pudding (a sausage), to yorkshire pudding (a bread) to plum pudding (a dessert)

source: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-brits-talk-about-...

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

#137

Post by oasisbob » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 2:14 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"!

Same in many parts of the US, except it's taken one step further with "chai tea" - even in big-budget advertisements by chains who should know better.

Seeing or hearing "chai tea" drives my Indian wife up the wall everytime.

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

#138

Post by oasisbob » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

gcb0 wrote: post #127

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"!

if you want to argue correctness, it should be "spicy" since Australia speaks english :)

Translate garam masala next. :)

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

#139

Post by dagw » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

mziel wrote: post #135

_0nac wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interestingly pu-erh is often referred to as "red tea" in Western countries.

I've only heard "red tea" used to refer to rooibos tea.

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

#140

Post by megaman22 » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 2:20 PM UTC

erebrus wrote: post #50

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

Spices were far bigger initially. Black pepper, cloves, nutmegs and mace were the real money makers. Cloves and nutmegs especially, since they only grew natively on a handful of the Molucca islands, and a succession of bloody and exploitative regimes maintained a monopoly on production and export almost into the 19th century.