It's 'cha' in northern Mandarin, but 'tê' (茶) in southern Hokkien, so it depended on which trading port you bought from.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tea#/media/File%3ANames_for_t...
Also, 'oo long' is black dragon.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tea#/media/File%3ANames_for_t...
Also, 'oo long' is black dragon.
Almost every purported etymology of a well-established word being an acronym of an even older phrase is an urban legend. Another example: "fuck" being an acronym for "fornication under consent of the king". It's baloney.
I'm not talking about modern words like "scuba" or "laser" obviously.
That was indeed part of what you were talking about.
I agree that most folk etymologies involving acronyms are wrong, but don't move your goalposts.
How so?
Even if the tea came from different ports in China, it was going to Portugal. The crates would be labeled in Portuguese. In which case there's no reason to write "cha" or "té" based on where the crate was shipping from. After the first time someone named tea in Portuguese it should always be "cha".
Or the crate would be labeled 茶 and whatever is the Chinese character for "cha", which no one in Portugal could read.
Either way the "tea" etymology story falls apart. There's no reason for it to be labeled "tea".