ti tiː a light midafternoon meal of tea and sandwiches or cakes an Englishman would interrupt a war to have his afternoon tea dried leaves of the tea shrub; used to make tea the store shelves held many different kinds of tea they threw the tea into Boston harbor a beverage made by steeping tea leaves in water iced tea is a cooling drink a tropical evergreen shrub or small tree extensively cultivated in e.g. China and Japan and India; source of tea leaves tea has fragrant white flowers