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There is a tea brand known as おいお茶{ちゃ} sold near me. One question I had was
that on the bottle, it says that it means "Tea, please!" I figured that would
be a rather rude way to ask for tea. Is there a nuance I am not aware of with
the phrase おい？
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2018-08-04T14:20:06.453
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2018-08-04T15:33:16.273
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question
translation colloquial-language
Translation of おい　お茶
It isn't おいお茶 but お～いお茶. お～い is used when people call someone with
friendliness who is away from them. It is close to "Hello", "Hey".

The company that produce them says that they named it お～いお茶 because
friendliness can be felt in the name like people call their family.

Source: <https://www.itoen.co.jp/customer/teach/006/>
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2018-08-04T15:18:18.503
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2018-08-04T15:31:17.093
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answer
The phrase can be interpreted in more than one ways: "Tea, please!", or "Hey!
(Tea)", although in the latter sense, what Tea does is still vague. Without
context, one would infer the former. However, if you've seen the recent CMs
yelling the phrase, you will interpret it in the latter sense.

I saw more than once the interpretation of 「お～いお茶」 becoming a discussion topic
in the Japanese Internet. One of them is [referred to in
Netolab](http://nlab.itmedia.co.jp/nl/articles/1805/04/news006.html).

[The official explanation from
Itoen](https://www.itoen.co.jp/customer/teach/006/) is quoted there:

> 1970年代に、新国劇の島田正吾さんが「お～いお茶」と 呼びかけるCMをテレビで放映しました。
>
> ...
>
> 家族などに呼びかけているような親しみが込められ、 今でも皆様にご愛顧いただいております。

So in the 1970s the brand name came from earlier commercial messages, where an
actor said 「お～いお茶」 and the phrase basically addressed families or something
similar. (And at that time, the brand name was 「缶入り煎茶」, a mere explanation of
the product)

I couldn't find the exact film at that time, but [another page in the Itoen
website](https://www.itoen.co.jp/oiocha/history/oiocha_history/index.html)
contains an image captured from the CM.

Inferring from the information, I suppose that, at the time, the phrase
exactly meant "Tea, please". However, possibly for political correctness
reasons, the nuance was seemingly changed [in the recent
CMs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gkti3ud_aa4) so that "おーい" is just a yell
at the sky (mostly, by an actress) and "お茶" sounds just a meaningless
addition.
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2018-08-04T15:33:16.273
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2018-08-04T15:33:16.273
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answer