Tea is called TEA in English, and its pronunciation in other European countries is quite similar. It is consistently acknowledged that this pronunciation originated from the Minnan dialect's reading of the character “茶” (tea). From the Tang Dynasty's establishment of the “Maritime Trade Commission” to manage import and export shipping cargo, until the Ming Dynasty, the three Fujian ports of Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, and Xiamen were thriving markets for Chinese tea exports. People in Fujian called tea “TEY” (sounding similar to “tie”). The name follows the owner, so Western merchants who sailed across the oceans to trade in China would buy TEY in large quantities. Upon returning, they would tell others this item was called TEY.

However, why is this item called TEY written in English as TEA and pronounced as “tee”?

According to scholars of historical pronunciation, the word TEA was formed in the 16th and 17th centuries. At that time, the letters E and A written together were treated as a “diphthong,” pronounced as EY (similar to the back-vowel sound “ay” in Chinese). Therefore, TEA was pronounced as TEY at that time. There are several lines in Shakespeare's plays where words ending with EA rhyme with EY, which serves as evidence.

Language also changes with the times. Later, the English stopped pronouncing E-A as a diphthong, and the pronunciation “tee” became widespread. Today, only the Irish maintain the ancient pronunciation, where the word is still written as TEA but pronounced as “tay.”