tea

There are, of course, many types of tea: green tea, bubble (boba) tea, the redundantly named chai tea, the tea tree and its oil, the Boston Tea Party, the teacup poodle, the Long Island iced tea, to name just a few.

But in slang, tea means “gossip,” a juicy scoop, or other personal information. (It’s best served piping hot.)

Tea refers to gossip or other private information. As far as we can tell, it was steeped in Black drag culture.

One theory connects tea to the celebrated drag performer The Lady Chablis, who is quoted in the 1994 bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: “Yeah, my T. My thing, my business, what’s goin’ on in my life.” T, here, is short for truth.

The slang tea may riff on The Lady Chablis’s T as well as on tea parties, at which well-to-do Southern women are popularly imagined to gossip. The term is especially found in the expression spilling the tea, or dishing out the gossip, associated with Black gay slang.

Tea spread thanks in part to RuPaul’s Drag Race starting in 2009. The reality show frequently uses (spilling the) tea for “gossip.” Meanwhile, talk show host Wendy Williams, has been known to drink actual tea while spilling some tea on her Wendy Williams Show.

One internet-famous tea-sipper is The Muppets‘s Kermit the Frog. In it, he is smugly taking a sip of Lipton tea and remarking “But that’s none of my business,” used to throw shade. The meme emerged as early as 2014 and is sometimes used, true to the slang tea, in contexts of gossip.

The Black gay and drag communities stills love tea, which spread into a more mainstream vernacular thanks to the popularity of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

clean up on aisle 8 cause the tea has been spilled https://t.co/sda5WuJsNT

— 🅱️ristian (@twerk4gaga) June 11, 2015

You can spill the tea like you would use the more common expression spill the beans. 

This is the gif I’m going to use when there’s drama. Spill the tea sis I’m ready pic.twitter.com/md0fGYxeto

— Michelle (@bbyhoneyhaz) May 7, 2019

Other tea expressions include no tea no shade, what’s the tea sis, and that’s the tea.

i’m 110% sure that hailey bieber is pregnant and that’s the tea for today

— cecilie (@ceciliesw) May 7, 2019

It’s also common to see tea being used as a reaction to someone revealing some sensational information (e.g., Tea!).

More examples of tea:

“East St. Louis may not have the staple food like the overrated Harold’s Chicken (all tea, no shade). However, it was the mom and pop shops from your everyday neighbors, educators and church folks that ensured anyone could have a cooked meal when asked.”
—Alana Marie, The Root, February 2019

“When Drake dropped his highly anticipated Scorpion album on June 29, it’s safe to say that everyone was shook by a handful of lyrics in “Finesse,” which seemed to hint at a romance with the model.”
—Lara Walsh, Elite Daily, June 2018

This content is not meant to be a formal definition of this term. Rather, it is an informal summary that seeks to provide supplemental information and context important to know or keep in mind about the term’s history, meaning, and usage.