Several parts combine into one character.

Phonetic-semantic compound: 艹 (grass / plant radical) + 余 (a phonetic component). Originally meant "bitter herb" generally; later specialized to the tea plant and the beverage. Identical across 繁體 / 新字体 / 简体.

The character that gave English the word "tea". The 17th-century Dutch traders bought tea from Fujian Province, where the local pronunciation of 茶 was "tê". Through Dutch trade, "tê" became English "tea" and most European languages adopted variants of "tea/te/thé". But trade through Cantonese (where 茶 is "cha") spread to other regions — Russian "chai", Hindi "chai", Portuguese "chá", Korean "차". So global tea-vocabulary today splits into two camps based on which Chinese port your country traded with: "tea" languages (Dutch trade route) vs "cha" languages (overland / Portuguese trade).

Mandarin: chá, rising 2nd tone. 茶 (chá, tea), 喝茶 (hē chá, drink tea — Chinese cultural greeting), 茶叶 (cháyè, tea leaves), 绿茶 (lǜchá, green tea), 红茶 (hóngchá, "red tea" = what English calls black tea — colors named differently!), 奶茶 (nǎichá, milk tea — modern bubble tea boom), 茶馆 (cháguǎn, teahouse), 茶艺 (cháyì, tea art).

Japanese: TWO on-readings. チャ (cha) is dominant — お茶 (ocha, tea — the everyday polite word), 茶碗 (chawan, tea bowl / rice bowl), 抹茶 (matcha, powdered green tea — the famous Japanese tea ceremony tea, now globally known), 茶色 (chairo, brown — "tea color"). サ (sa) appears in 茶道 (sadō / chadō, the Way of Tea — the Japanese tea ceremony tradition perfected by Sen no Rikyū in the 16th century), 喫茶店 (kissaten, traditional café — note geminate "ss"). The 茶道 (sadō, tea ceremony) is one of Japan's most refined cultural arts, embodying wabi-sabi aesthetics and Zen Buddhist principles.

Korean dual reading 차/다 splits regionally — 다 in compounds like (tea ceremony), 차 in everyday usage like (green tea), preserving both reading traditions.

Memory aid: a herb you brew = tea. The character that traveled the world via the Dutch.