kahwa

So riddle me this. Our word 'coffee', as everyone seems to know, derives from:

>>1598, from It. caffe, from Turk. kahveh, from Arabic qahwah "coffee," said originally to have meant "wine," but perhaps rather from Kaffa region of Ethiopia, a home of the plant (Coffee in Kaffa is called buno). Much initial diversity of spelling, including chaoua.<<

So Arabic Qahwah, from Turkik Kahveh. But why, oh why, is a Kashmiri tea named kahwa?
And it is not, I think, out of some broad semantic change, where the word is used as something like "invigorating liquid" and so can slide from coffee to tea. For the dictionary seems to record:

kahwa

kahwa कह््व । चव्यरसः m. coffee (roasted, or roasted and ground, or the decoction); in Kāshmīrī, sweetened tea (the liquid) (L. 254, 464).[Grierson, A Dictionary of the Kashmiri Language].

I don't know quite if this means that in Kashmiri the only use for "kahwa" is the tea drink. But perhaps it is. If so, why? For one assumes that if the word could travel, so could the beans and the drink via the trade routes. Why did coffee not arrive, but the word for it did?

There is, however, something to be said for traditional lexicography. If it is true that Arab lexicographers took the root meaning of qahwah to be not simply "wine", and so spiritous liqours of some kind, but also dark brews that have the right properties, perhaps the invigorating Kashmiri drink is aptly so named. Kahwa is, after all, dark, almost wine-dark (as the impossible description goes).

(See: The Etymology of "Coffee": The Dark Brew, Alan S. Kaye, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 106, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1986), pp. 557-558)


Now, the other think I should like to know why "kahwa" is not used with "chai" when speaking of the drink. It is recognized that this drink is something distinct from just chai, hence the phrase mogali-chai in Kashmiri.

. mŏgȧli: (page 552)

(= ) adj. c.g. of or relating to a Mogul. -- cāhy -- चाह्य् or -- cāhi -- चाहि&below; or -- cāy -- चाय् । पानविशेषः f. a kind of tea (the drink). According to El. (s.v. chái) it is prepared as follows:-- For every tōlā (half-ounce) of tea five cups of water are poured upon it in the bahugun or teapot. It is then boiled for half an hour, when more cold water is added, along with condiments and sugar, after which it is boiled for half an hour

I wonder if it has to do with the fact that though the method of preparation looks like chai, the lack of milk makes it more like drinks called qahwah. Except that "cha", as we all know, lies behind the chai, and "cha" does not require milk.

>>1655, earlier chaa (1598, from Port. cha), from Malay teh and directly from Chinese (Amoy dialect) t'e, in Mandarin ch'a. The distribution of the different forms of the word reflects the spread of use of the beverage. The modern Eng. form, along with Fr. the, Sp. te, Ger. Tee, etc., derive via Du. thee from the Amoy form, reflecting the role of the Dutch as the chief importers of the leaves (through the Dutch East India Company, from 1610). First known in Paris 1635, the practice of drinking tea was first introduced to England 1644. The Port. word (attested from 1559) came via Macao; and Rus. chai, Pers. cha, Gk. tsai, Arabic shay and Turk. çay all came overland from the Mandarin form<<