‘Tea’ functions as slang for gossip within Black gay culture and southern Black communities, used colloquially as "what's the tea?". The term dates back to at least the 1970s and is described as gossip similar to what 'girls' might exchange while taking tea in the afternoon. In some Black gay contexts, 'tea' is associated with performance, fashion, and social commentary alongside gossip. Separately, the beverage term 'tea' entered English in the 17th century from forms like 'tay' and from Chinese 'ch'a' or 'chaa', with tea consumption originating in East Asia and a legend crediting Emperor Shen Nung.
What's tea? If you hear someone asking that question (or the similar "What's the tea?"), they're probably not referring to the steeped, hot beverage that has long been cherished the world over. Instead to put it in other slang phrases of days past they probably mean "what's the haps" or "what's the hot goss" or, for children of the pre-internet era, "what's the 411?" In other words, what's going on?
'Straight life must be so boring. Because everyone conforms. These gay kids carry on. They give you the wrong colors at the wrong time. They give you dance and great tea [gossip],' Nate tells Hawkeswood. In a later footnote explaining the term, Hawkeswood traces the word back to at least the 1970s, writing: 'Three southern-born informants explained 'tea' as 'gossip,' such as that exchanged between 'girls' taking tea in the afternoon. They indicated that the expression was black and originally southern.'
"Tea" evolved from the word "chaa," which was derived, in part, from the Chinese "ch'a." People are first known to have begun consuming tea in East Asia. Legend has it that in 2737 B.C.E., Chinese Emperor Shen Nung was seated under a tea tree when some of its leaves blew into a pot of water that his servant was boiling, leading the emperor to try the beverage,
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