Etymograph

English

tea

Tea comes from Dutch thee, from Hokkien 茶 (tê), ultimately from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-la ‘leaf, tea’.

  1. Proto-Sino-Tibetanprehistoric (reconstructed)*s-la1‘leaf’reconstructed
  2. Hokkienmodern茶1tê
  3. Dutchc. 1500–presentthee1
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1837tea1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English tea
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1837, Benjamin Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1835-1837: “I dined yesterday at | three on mutton chops…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Sino-Tibetanprehistoric (reconstructed)*s-laWiktionary, English tea‘leaf’reconstructed
  2. Hokkienmodern茶Wiktionary, English teatê
  3. Dutchc. 1500–presenttheeWiktionary, English tea
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1837teaWiktionary, English tea. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1837, Benjamin Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli Letters: 1835-1837: “I dined yesterday at | three on mutton chops…”

The story

First appears c. 1655, in the English translation Álvaro Semedo’s writings. Introduced to English and other Western European languages by the Dutch East India Company, who sourced their tea in Amoy; compare Malay teh along the same trade route.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with tea, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

through Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-la ‘leaf, tea’

through Hokkien 茶

2 more relatives in the full family tree

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Today it means

noun The tea plant (Camellia sinensis); (countable) a variety of this plant.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “tea”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-la / tea