Interesting enough, tea is an acronym in portuguese language.<p>The words T.E.A. were written on boxes carrying the expensive substance from India.<p>That means: Transporte de Ervas Aromáticas (Transport of Aromatic Herbs)
This sounds like a made-up Internet meme, I'm sorry.<p>For starters, tea is from China, not India (EDIT: this isn't totally correct, but tea drinking as a habit, rather than as a medicine, didn't exist in India until the colonial era). And why wouldn't they just write "chá" on the boxes?
It's 'cha' in northern Mandarin, but 'tê' (茶) in southern Hokkien, so it depended on which trading port you bought from.<p><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tea#/media/File%3ANames_for_tea.png" rel="nofollow">https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tea#/media/File%3ANames_for_t...</a><p>Also, 'oo long' is <i>black dragon</i>.
Escape import duties if aromatic herbs had lower fees than cha?
Time to update <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_tea" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_tea</a> then?<p>That explanation is… highly unlikely.
Maybe because for us tea leaves fall under herbs, as general purpose description.<p>However the right wording is Chá, and it needs to be explicitly mentioned of what.<p>Chá preto - black tea<p>Chá de ervas - herbs tea<p>And so on.
That seems about as likely as "fuck" being the acronym "Fornication Under Consent of the King".