“茶” is the Chinese Character For Tea in English, Which there are two main Pronounciation in China; Chá from Mandarin and Cantonese and Thé/Te from Min Nan/Southern Min (闽南语) or Amoy Topolect.

Tea by Sea, Cha by Land

cited in the Philosophy of Tea by TONY GEBELY

Back then, the China’s coastal region (specifically Fujian Province) where most tea exported into Europe, which this areas was used “te” or “The”. For the inland route, tea was mostly spread to Middle East and Russia via Silk Road, the area where local languages was called tea as Cha or Similarly.🍂 

As an example: *Hindi Chāy, Arabic Shāy, Russian Chay, *English Tea, French Thé, Indonesia teh, Khmer ( Te or តែ).

There are also exceptional for a few area such as Japan, Korean and Portuguese. As, Portugal was trading out of Macau and Portuguese word for tea is Chá. Japanese and Korean.also use “Cha” for tea as well.

_Cited in The philosophy of Tea, by TONY GEBELY_