" teas "

[Noun]  | "tea" | \ ˈtē \

1: a widely cultivated shrub (Camellia sinensis of the family Theaceae, the tea family) native to China, northern India, and southeastern Asia and having glossy green leaves and fragrant white flowers

2: the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of the tea plant prepared for use in beverages usually by immediate curing by heat or by such curing following a period of fermentation

3: an aromatic beverage prepared from tea leaves by soaking them in boiling water

Origin: 1655 ;

 Borrowed from Chinese (Xiamen) dé;

  * Note : The use of the word tea to mean "inside information" presumably plays on an association of tea drinking with the exchange of gossip. Early use in this sense also see:ms to allude to tea leaves as a means to tell fortunes: "Over the past two weeks I've promised to spill the tea leaves about the Capital Cuppa competition in which readers of this newspaper play a crucial role" (ad in the Marylebone Mercury and other London newspapers, May 7, 1987); "Former White House chief of staff Donald Regan is going to spill the tea leaves about the Reagans' so-called superstitions in his book, due out in a couple of weeks" (Palm Beach Post, May 5, 1988, p. 49). Tea meaning "gossip" (without spilling or leaves) is an integral part of the lexicon of gay Harlem, documented by William Hawkeswood in One of the Children: Gay Black Men in Harlem (University of California Press, 1996; the author completed the text before his death in 1992). It has been suggested that the origin of tea as "gossip" might lie not in the literal meaning, but rather its adaptation as a spelled form of the letter T. The drag queen who went by the name The Lady Chablis used "my T" to refer to—as she put it in one source—"my thing, my business, what's goin' on in my life" and in another "my T, my Truth." The Lady Chablis is quoted extensively in John Berendt's "non-fiction novel" Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (New York, 1994), and spoke for herself in her autobiography Hiding My Candy: The Autobiography of the Grand Empress of Savannah (New York, 1996). As she explained in "The Lady Chablis Lexicon" at the end of the autobiography, "to know my T, to tell my T" is equivalent to "knowing where my candy's hidden; knowing that I even have candy," i.e., knowing that she is transgender and was born with male sex organs. The lexicon also lists "pour the tea," glossed as to "Tell The Doll the truth, or dish the dirt!", but the fact that she treated this as a distinct usage would lead one to believe that tea in this sense is not identical with her own use of T. If Chablis's is actually dependent on tea, it is, in any case, after-the-fact word play on an existing meaning and cannot be claimed as the origin of the "gossip" sense.;

[Noun]  | "black tea" 

1: tea that is dark in color from complete oxidation of the leaf before firing

Origin: 1706 ;

[Noun]  | "cambric tea" 

1: a hot drink of water, milk, sugar, and often a small amount of tea

Origin: 1859 ;

[Noun]  | "green tea" 

1: tea that is light in color and made from leaves that have not been oxidized before drying

Origin: 1704 ;

[Noun]  | "high tea" 

1: a fairly substantial late afternoon or early evening meal at which tea is served

Origin: 1831 ;

[Noun]  | "Labrador tea" 

1: a low-growing ericaceous evergreen shrub (Ledum groenlandicum) chiefly of northern North America with white or creamy bell-shaped flowers and leaves sometimes used in making tea; also : a related shrub (L. glandulosum) of western North America

Origin: 1767 ;

[Noun]  | "Mormon tea" 

1: any of various ephedras of the arid southwestern U.S. having jointed stems used especially formerly to make a tea

Origin: 1910 ;

[Noun]  | "New Jer*sey tea" | \ nü-ˈjər-zē- \

1: a low deciduous shrub (Ceanothus americanus) of the buckthorn family that is found in the eastern U.S. and has dull green leaves and small white flowers borne in large terminal panicles

Origin: 1759 ;

 New Jersey, state of U.S.; from the use of its leaves as a substitute for tea during the American Revolution;

[Noun]  | "Os*we*go tea" | \ ä-ˈswē-gō- \

1: a North American mint (Monarda didyma) with showy scarlet irregular flowers

Origin: 1747 ;

 Oswego River, N. Y.;

[Noun]  | "red tea" 

1: rooibos

2: black tea

Origin: 1848 ;

[Noun]  | "teas"