Word.ws English Dictionary

gunpowder tea

gunpowder tea noun: a form of Chinese green tea in which each leaf has been rolled into a small round pellet.

gunpowder tea: a form of Chinese green tea in which each leaf has been rolled into a small round pellet
Image: soultea.de /André Helbig, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

gunpowder tea (countable and uncountable, plural gunpowder teas)

  1. A form of Chinese green tea in which each leaf has been rolled into a small round pellet.
    Synonyms:
    gunpowder[Appendix:Glossary, pearl tea, cha, char, Rosie, Rosie Lee, Rosy, Rosy Lee, tay, tea

Synonyms of gunpowder tea

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All synonyms of gunpowder tea

Forms of gunpowder tea

pluralgunpowder teas

Origin of gunpowder tea

Perhaps from the similarity in appearance to the pelletized forms of gunpowder. The Chinese name is 珠茶 (zhūchá, literally “pearl tea”). The derivation from Chinese 剛泡的 /刚泡的 (gāng pào de, “freshly brewed”) is likely a folk etymology.

Questions about gunpowder tea

What does gunpowder tea mean?
Gunpowder tea means a form of Chinese green tea in which each leaf has been rolled into a small round pellet.
What part of speech is gunpowder tea?
Gunpowder tea is a noun.
What is the plural of gunpowder tea?
The plural of gunpowder tea is gunpowder teas.

Words near gunpowder tea in the dictionary

  1. gunpowder
  2. gunpowder chicken
  3. gunpowder empire
  4. gunpowder empires
  5. Gunpowder Plot
  6. gunpowder tea
  7. gunpowder teas
  8. Gunpowder Treason
  9. Gunpowder Treason Day
  10. gunpowdered
  11. gunpowdering

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gunpowder tea (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-gunpowder tea.wav.

Cite this entry: “gunpowder tea.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gunpowder_tea. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.