茶
chá · HSK 1
tea
🍵 chá sounds like 'cha' in chai — same root word for tea
The character 茶 sits under 艹 (grass/plant radical), marking it as a leaf-based drink. English 'tea' and Spanish 'té' both trace back to Min Chinese 'te', while 'chai' comes from this same chá.
茶 — grass radical 艹 + 余 (phonetic)
茶 combines the grass radical 艹, indicating a plant, with 余 serving as the phonetic component. It originally derived from the older character 荼, which referred broadly to bitter herbs; a stroke was dropped during the Tang dynasty to distinguish the tea plant specifically. Today it means tea.