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Different Types Of Tea Bags
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The word tea
The Chinese character for tea is 茶, but it is pronounced differently in the various Chinese dialects. Two pronunciations have made their way into other languages around the world:
• Tê: From the Hokkien dialect, spoken in Fujian Province, Taiwan and by expatriate Chinese in Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. It reached the West particularly from the Amoy Min Nan dialect, spoken around the port of Xiamen (Amoy), once a major point of contact with Western European traders. This pronunciation is believed to come from the old words for tea 梌 (tú) or 荼 (tú). A related but distinct pronunciation is zu, used in the Wu dialect spoken around Shanghai.
• Chá: From the Mandarin dialect of northern China, as well as in the Cantonese dialect spoken around the ports of Guangzhou (Canton), Hong Kong, Macau, and in overseas Chinese communities. This term was used in ancient times to describe the first flush harvest of tea.
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