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Yeah, you are right on with that observation. You prompted me to find out from where the VOC imported their tea. Apparently the initial source was Macao which s

Yeah, you are right on with that observation. You prompted me to find out from where the VOC imported their tea. Apparently the initial source was Macao which spoke Cantonese. In modern day Canton and Putonghua words for tea are near indisguishable, so perhaps the Cantonese word for tea circa 1600 was quite like the current Putonhua word for tea. Had VOC sourced their tea from Sri Lanka, our word for tea might be dramatically different. In Tamil, tea is called தேநீர் (tēnīr) http://www.mightyleaftea.be/history-of-tea?___store=uk&___from_store=nl http://www.mightyleaftea.be/history-of-tea?___store=uk&___fr... edit: tea not teat

lacampbell 9y ago
From wikipedia Starting in the early seventeen century, the Dutch played a dominant role in the early European tea trade via the Dutch East India Company.[18] The Dutch borrowed the word for "tea" (thee) from Min Chinese, either through trade directly from Fujian or Formosa where they had established a port, or from Malay traders in Bantam, Java. Also interesting speculation as to whether the chinese themselves got it the word from speakers of austro-asiatic languages living in southwest china. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea#Etymology