Curry (from Tamil: கறி) is the English description of any of a general variety of spicy dishes, best-known in Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Nepali, Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai, Chinese and other South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines, though curry has been adopted into all of the mainstream cuisines of the Asia-Pacific region. Along with tea, curry is one of the few dishes or drinks that is truly "Pan-Asian", but specifically, its roots come from India. The concept of curry was later brought to the West by British colonialists in India from the 18th century. Dishes that are often classified as curries in Europe and America are rarely considered curries in their native countries.