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Tea characters — free printable worksheets
The vocabulary of the one Chinese export that reached almost every language on earth.
15 characters · 2 sheets · A4 and US Letter
Why these 15
The word for tea left China twice. Overland along the Silk Road it travelled as chá, which is why Russian has chai and Turkish has çay. By sea out of the Fujian ports it travelled as the local te, which is why English has tea and French has thé. Almost every word for tea on the planet is one of those two syllables, and which one a language ended up with tells you how the tea got there. The character itself, 茶, is a person standing between grass and a tree — a picker among the bushes.
All 15 characters
| 茶 | chá | tea | 9 strokes |
| 水 | shuǐ | water | 4 strokes |
| 叶 | yè | leaf | 5 strokes |
| 杯 | bēi | cup | 8 strokes |
| 壶 | hú | pot; kettle | 10 strokes |
| 香 | xiāng | fragrant | 9 strokes |
| 喝 | hē | to drink | 12 strokes |
| 山 | shān | mountain | 3 strokes |
| 花 | huā | flower | 7 strokes |
| 果 | guǒ | fruit; result | 8 strokes |
| 金 | jīn | gold; metal | 8 strokes |
| 青 | qīng | blue-green | 8 strokes |
| 白 | bái | white | 5 strokes |
| 火 | huǒ | fire | 4 strokes |
| 米 | mǐ | rice (uncooked); metre | 6 strokes |
Questions people ask
Yes, and rather more besides — 奶茶 is milk tea, 凉茶 is a herbal cooling drink, and in some regions a 茶 can be any brewed infusion at all.