The kanji character 茶 primarily means "tea." It represents the plant Camellia sinensis and the beverage made from its leaves. This includes various types of tea like green tea, black tea, and oolong tea.

・On-yomi (音読み): チャ (cha) ・Kun-yomi (訓読み): ちゃ (cha)

⚫︎ お茶 Translation: tea ⚫︎ 紅茶 Translation: black tea ⚫︎ 茶道 Translation: tea ceremony

The kanji 茶 is a phono-semantic compound (形声文字, けいせいもじ). The upper part is the radical 艹 (くさかんむり, "grass radical"), which indicates that the character relates to plants. The lower part 余 (yo), is used phonetically, indicating the sound. The original meaning of the character was likely related to the plant itself before developing to represent the beverage. The character evolved over time, taking on its current form.