But that's because the Europeans all adopted the word later.
From etymology online:
The distribution of the different forms of the word in Europe reflects the spread of use of the beverage. The modern English form, along with French thé, Spanish te, German Tee, etc., derive via Dutch 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). Meanwhile, Russian chai, Persian cha, Greek tsai, Arabic shay, and Turkish çay all came overland from the Mandarin form.
Interestingly, we the Portuguese are the exception, using Chá despite being at the Western extreme of the continent: http://i.imgur.com/M4vrWr1.png
Which probably means we got it earlier thanks to our trips to India and China in the 1500s, but then failed to capitalize on its sale to the rest of Europe.
Yeah, you are right on with that observation. You prompted me to find out from where the VOC imported their tea. Apparently the initial source was Macao which spoke Cantonese. In modern day Canton and Putonghua words for tea are near indisguishable, so perhaps the Cantonese word for tea circa 1600 was quite like the current Putonhua word for tea. Had VOC sourced their tea from Sri Lanka, our word for tea might be dramatically different. In Tamil, tea is called தேநீர் (tēnīr)
Starting in the early seventeen century, the Dutch played a dominant role in the early European tea trade via the Dutch East India Company.[18] The Dutch borrowed the word for "tea" (thee) from Min Chinese, either through trade directly from Fujian or Formosa where they had established a port, or from Malay traders in Bantam, Java.
Also interesting speculation as to whether the chinese themselves got it the word from speakers of austro-asiatic languages living in southwest china.
From etymology online:
The distribution of the different forms of the word in Europe reflects the spread of use of the beverage. The modern English form, along with French thé, Spanish te, German Tee, etc., derive via Dutch 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). Meanwhile, Russian chai, Persian cha, Greek tsai, Arabic shay, and Turkish çay all came overland from the Mandarin form.