Tea
Etymology
Rooted in African American Vernacular English and Black drag/ballroom culture, where “T” stood for “truth” — one’s personal truth or business (“my T”). It is documented in the drag speech of the 1980s–90s, notably The Lady Chablis in John Berendt’s 1994 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and was respelled “tea” and popularized through reality TV and Black Twitter in the 2010s.
noun · /TEE/
Gossip, or the inside truth about a situation — what’s really going on beneath the surface.
What it names
It names the gap between the official story and the real one, and the thing you ask for when you want the unvarnished account. “Spill the tea” invites someone to hand over what they know; “what’s the tea” asks for the latest.
Example
She sat down, lowered her voice, and said she had tea about the whole department reshuffle.
Related idea
More pointed than gossip: gossip is idle talk about people, while tea is the specific inside information you’re actually after.