Der Tee schmeckt natürlich gut.

good

Breakdown of Der Tee schmeckt natürlich gut.

• schmecken: to taste
• der Tee: the tea
• natürlich: natural

Questions & Answers about Der Tee schmeckt natürlich gut.

Why is it Der Tee and not Das Tee or Die Tee?

In German, every noun has a grammatical gender that you usually just have to learn:

• der = masculine
• die = feminine
• das = neuter

Tee happens to be masculine, so the correct definite article in the nominative singular is der: der Tee.

This is not about the real-world “gender” of tea; it’s just a grammatical property. When you look up Tee in a dictionary, you’ll see it written as der Tee, which tells you its gender.

Also note that all nouns in German are capitalized, so Tee must start with a capital T.

What case is Der Tee in here?

Der Tee is the subject of the sentence, so it is in the nominative case.

For a masculine noun like Tee, the definite article in the nominative is der. Compare the masculine definite article in other cases for contrast:

• Nominative: der Tee (subject) – Der Tee schmeckt gut.
• Accusative: den Tee (direct object) – Ich trinke den Tee.
• Dative: dem Tee (indirect object) – Ich gebe dem Tee Zucker.
• Genitive: des Tees (possessive) – Der Geschmack des Tees ist mild.

In your sentence, since Tee is doing the “tasting” (grammatically speaking), it’s nominative: Der Tee.