Char

The humble cup of tea - char - was the most popular English working-class drink by the mid-19th century.

It is generally thought that ‘char’ was an Anglicisation of the Indian word for tea, but ‘char’ is in fact quite a close version of the Chinese for tea, tcha. Tea was grown exclusively in China until the mid-19th century, and increasingly large amounts of it were sold to Britain from the early 18th century as it became a more and more popular drink.

Read more at http://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/cup-char#Wut7TtPJE1gHHj0B.99