Chinese Tea Culture - Etymology

Etymology

For contemporary Chinese, the word "茶" (pinyin: chá) has come to commonly denote the drink that is derived from, the tea plant (茶樹/茶树, pinyin: cháshù). Prior to the 8th century BC, the tea was known collectively under the term "荼" (pinyin: tú) along with a great number of other bitter plants. The great similarity of the two characters are notable with the exception of an additional horizontal stroke in 荼. The character is made up of the "艸" (pinyin: cǎo) radical in its reduced form of "艹" and the word "余" which gives the phonetic cue. The plant was later more distinctly identified and was called "檟苦荼" (pinyin: jiǎkǔtú, literally "'evergreen shrub' of bitter 'bitter plant'"), or in simplified forms "苦荼" (pinyin: kǔtú) or "荈" (pinyin: chuǎn).

The word "茗" (pinyin: míng), which was possibly derived from the Burmese word, was later used to indicate tea where its popularity spread and became more common in Ancient China. This word is still used in modern tea communities in Taiwan and the People's Republic of China to denote tea. By the end of the 8th century BC, the character "荼" was finally simplified to "茶". Lù Yǔ (陸羽/陆羽, 733-804) of the Tang Dynasty, wrote in his crowning work, The Tea Classic or Chájīng (茶經/茶经), on the origins of the character for tea as well as the numerous words used to denote tea. In the first chapter of Chájīng, "The origins" (卷上, 一之源) he wrote:

其字：或從草，或從木，或草木並。 qí zì : huò cóng cǎo, huò cóng mù, huò cǎo mù bìng.

which means: "Its character: may come from herb/grass (茶 chá from 文字音義 Wénzì yīnyì in 736 AD), or from tree/wood (梌 tú from 本草經 Běncǎojīng, an ancient medical text), or the combination of the two (荼 tú from the 爾雅 Ěryǎ, atreatise on lexicography from the Han dynasty)"

其名：一曰茶，二曰檟，三曰蔎，四曰茗，五曰荈。 qí míng: yī yuē chá, èr yuē jiǎ, sān yuē shè, sì yuē míng, wǔ yuē chuǎn.

which means: Its names: first it is called 茶 chá, then 檟 jiǎ, thirdly 蔎 shè, fourthly 茗 míng, fifthly 荈 chuǎn.

Where:

• 檟 jiǎ: according to the author Yang Xiong of Han dynasty, the term was used by Zhōugōng (周公), the duke of Zhou dynasty to indicate the 苦荼 (kǔtú)
• 蔎 shè: the term by which natives of present day Sìchuān used to indicated 荼 (tú)
• 茶,蔎,茗,荈 chá, shè, míng, chuǎn: in legends, Guōhóngnóng (郭弘農), specified that first tea harvest is known as chá, followed by míng, then shè, and finally chuǎn