British usage of “cha”, “char” or “chai” to mean “tea”

By happenstance, I stumbled upon the words cha, char and chai in the dictionary today, all defined as meaning tea in informal British English. I lived and worked in London for some time, but never heard it used, so I am wondering: is it specific to certain dialects? Or is it dated? The Oxford English Dictionary doesn't mention anything like that.

Solution 1:

"Char" is an old British English (in fact I would say English English) slang term for "tea". I don't think it is heard particularly often, but you might see or hear the phrase "cup of char and a wad" (meaning "cup of tea and a slice of cake") in a WWII context for example.

I seem to recall that Reggie Perrin used this expression in David Nobbs' novel 'The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin' back in the 1970s, but even then the café waitress didn't understand it and he had to translate. So I think it is a fairly rare beast, and probably often used (as in Reggie's case) to sound deliberately working class or for humourous effect.

Solution 2:

Chai, or its variants, are terms borrowed from various Asian languages, meaning "tea". Wikipedia, citing the AHD, gives the Mandarin chá (茶) as origin, then transmitted to Persian چای, and subsequently to other languages (e.g.: Hindi: चाय cāy, Urdu: چاۓ , cāy, Marathi: चहा cahā, Gujarati ચા chā, Bengali: চা cha).

The OED says that chai is generally used as shorthand for Masala chai, literally spiced tea, a tea made by brewing tea with a mix of spices in milk. Often you will also hear it called chai tea which, I guess, is a bit redundant... or, especially in the US, chai latte (see definition below), which is, again, redundant.

chai Mil. slang.
(tʃaɪ)
Any of various specific preparations of tea (typically associated with countries or regions where chai is the generic word for tea). Now esp. = masala chai n. at masala n. Compounds.
chai latte n. orig. N. Amer. a hot drink similar to masala chai, made with spiced tea (or a commercially produced concentrate) and steamed milk.

As for the regionality of the term, I can't help. I heard it commonly when I was living in NZ, don't know how widespread is in the UK or USA.