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It's 'cha' in northern Mandarin, but 'tê' (茶) in southern Hokkien, so it depended on which trading port you bought from. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tea#/me

• triceratops 8mo ago
  I'm aware tea has different names in different languages. I believe the rule is "cha if by land, tea if by water" (or maybe the other way around). That's not what I'm talking about. Almost every purported etymology of a well-established word being an acronym of an even older phrase is an urban legend. Another example: "fuck" being an acronym for "fornication under consent of the king". It's baloney. I'm not talking about modern words like "scuba" or "laser" obviously.
  • IAmBroom 8mo ago
    > That's not what I'm talking about. That was indeed part of what you were talking about. I agree that most folk etymologies involving acronyms are wrong, but don't move your goalposts.
    • triceratops 8mo ago
      > That was indeed part of what you were talking about. How so? Even if the tea came from different ports in China, it was going to Portugal. The crates would be labeled in Portuguese. In which case there's no reason to write "cha" or "té" based on where the crate was shipping from. After the first time someone named tea in Portuguese it should always be "cha". Or the crate would be labeled 茶 and whatever is the Chinese character for "cha", which no one in Portugal could read. Either way the "tea" etymology story falls apart. There's no reason for it to be labeled "tea".