The Tea

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Part of a series on Internet Slang. [View Related Entries]

About

The Tea is a slang term meaning "gossip" that originated in black drag culture before being popularized by memes such as But That's None of My Business.

Origin

According to Merriam-Webster,^[1] the term saw use in print as early as 1991. A person called "Nate," quoted in 1991's One of the Children: An Ethnography of Identity and Gay Black Men by William G. Hawkeswood, says:

Straight life must be so boring. Because everyone conforms. These gay kids carry on. … They give you dance and great tea [gossip].

In John Berendt's 1994 non-fiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, drag queen Lady Chablis uses the term "T" in a similar fashion, quoted as saying, "Yeah, my T. My thing, my business, what's goin' on in my life."

Spread

The term was added to Urban Dictionary on September 22nd, 2003 by user Kiwi, who defined it "gossip or personal information belonging to someone else."^[2] HelloGiggles^[4] posted a piece defining the term in 2013.

The use of tea as a slang term for gossip was arguably popularized by the popularity of the "But That's None of My Business," which featured Kermit the Frog sipping tea after relating a juicy bit of gossip.

After the spread of "But That's None of My Business," the use of "Tea" as slang for gossip began growing more popular. Buzzfeed^[3] posted a listicle of memes for "everyone who loves spilling the tea" on January 18th, 2016 (examples shown below).