Almost every language's word for 'tea' traces back to one of two trade routes

Nearly all words for tea worldwide descend from a single Chinese root, split by how it travelled. Dutch merchants shipped tea by sea from Fujian, where it's pronounced 'te', giving English 'tea', French 'thé' and Spanish 'té'. Everywhere tea arrived overland via Silk Road traders, it kept the Cantonese/Mandarin form 'cha', giving Hindi 'chai', Russian 'chay' and Arabic 'shay'.

— Standard etymological accounts, Etymology of tea — Lexical spread via Dutch maritime and overland Silk Road trade