With a few minor exceptions, there are really only two ways to say “tea” in the world. One is like the English term—té in Spanish and tee in Afrikaans are two examples. The other is some variation of cha, like chay in Hindi.

Both forms come from China. How they spread around the world offers a clear picture of how globalization worked. The words that sound like “cha” spread across land, along the Silk Road. The “tea”—like phrasings spread over water, by Dutch traders bringing the novel leaves back to Europe.

The term cha is Sinitic (汉语语系), meaning it is common to many varieties of Chinese. It began in China and made its way through central Asia, eventually becoming “chay” in Persian. That is no doubt due to the trade routes of the Silk Road, along which, according to a Cha discovery, tea was traded over 2,000 years ago. The Japanese and Korean terms for tea are also based on the Chinese cha, though those languages likely adopted the word even before its westward spread into Persia.

But that doesn’t account for “tea.” The Chinese character for tea, is pronounced differently by different varieties of Chinese, though it is written the same in them all. But in the Minnan variety of Chinese, spoken in the coastal province of Fujian, the character is pronounced “te”. The key word here is “coastal.”

The “te” form used in coastal-Chinese languages spread to Europe via the Dutch, who became the primary traders of tea between Europe and Asia in the 17th century. The main Dutch ports in east Asia were in Fujian and Taiwan, both places where people used the “te” pronunciation. The Dutch East India Company’s expansive tea importation into Europe gave us the French “thé”, the German “Tee”, and the English “tea”.

Yet the Dutch were not the first to Asia. That honor belongs to the Portuguese. And the Portuguese traded not through Fujian but Macao, where “chá” is used. That’s why Portugal is a pink dot in a sea of blue.

Do we still need cash? The days of holding dollar notes in our hands may be numbered. The advancement of technology of new electronic and mobile devices in today’s world is set to revolutionize how we make payments. With a swipe of a card or a click of a mobile-phone app, our entire wealth is literally at our fingertips. As digital forms are increasingly replacing cash payments, some think that we should become fully cash-free. However, I do not believe we should move towards a completely cash-free society.

One of the main concerns of a cashless world is the risk of fraud (欺诈) and ironically, the inconvenience that follows. Numerous incidents in recent years have warned us that the digital world is not completely safe, especially with regard to personal information parked online which are easily traceable. In addition, many online shopping sites lack strong fraud deterrence (威慑) systems that would protect their clients’ personal credentials. In a cashless society, a victim of fraud would find himself locked out of his account and unable to aces his funds until the case is solved.

Another reason we should not move towards completely cashless is that mankind might potentially become less thrifty. As it is, payments with credit cards have already eased that psychological pain somewhat.

Proponents of a cashless society agree that cash-free transactions (交易) could potentially reduce inequality in society by making financial transaction more transparent and reducing corruption, thus benefiting the poor. However, despite this promise, we cannot choose to ignore the fact that a large proportion of poor people in the developing world depend on cash to buy everyday goods such rice and vegetables that are priced at minute amounts. It does not make economic sense to host such transactions on a network.

The idea of society eventually going completely cashless is a very real, even an exciting one. However, to safeguard the interests of all users, it is better to reduce our enthusiasm—perhaps to be a less-cash society rather than a completely cashless one is a more reasonable option.