be the tea

slang

1. To be gossip. Come on, what's the tea? I want to hear about everything that happened at the party last night! A: "This is the tea: Blair's ex-boyfriend crashed the dance and made a huge scene." B: "No way!" A: "I didn't drop out of the student council election. Where did you hear that?" B: "It's the tea, everyone's talking about it."

2. To be the truth (about someone or something). If you look a little bit closer, you realize that the company is only doing it to boost their profits. That's the tea. A: "So we're supposedly working to dismantle rape culture and toxic masculinity, but that doesn't make me less afraid to walk alone at night." B: "Hey folks, that's the tea right there." Considering how much mental health affects everyone, both individually and collectively, why is it still so hard for the average person to get help? That's the tea, if you ask me.