I just got back from São Paulo 🇧🇷

Portuguese is their preferred language but there was one word they used that was not of European origin: Cha which is the universal word for tea in the Eastern world. For a European language like Portuguese, I expected them to say call it tea too. I was very surprised to see them use the term cha. So I looked it up here.

So the origins of tea comes from China. The first Europeans who came to China were the Portuguese, but I guess “cha” didn’t really catch on (sorry Portugal, you guys are not trendsetters). However, Europeans explored China by sea, and the coastal Chinese cities called it “te”and therefore that’s why mostly all of European and the western world calls it tea, except for Portugal, and of course Brazil. Maybe it’s a constant reminder to the Europeans that they got to China first.