Tea, Black or Red ?

Have you had a cup of Western Black Tea / Chinese Red Tea before the day ends? People are confused what's the differences, and why it's called differently?

The truth is the Chinese Red Tea was never that popular in the old times and in fact, it is for exports only for the foreign markets, since no one drinks it in China and they also sees it as a bad quality.

Why they make it? It was a mistake! There was a story talking about a group of armies passing Fujian Province one day and local people got so scared so they left the tea factory in a hurry and no one dare to come back till the army left the next day, the tea was ruined since it has been left there for too long. The owner couldn't afford such lost so he still decided to sell it on the market, and it wasn't called the Red Tea, it was called "Lan Cha " in Chinese （烂茶）which means Horrible Tea! Luckily , there was a foreign trader at the market who heard about the tea but since there w

eren't a name for it the foreigner just named it based on the color of the tea leaves, it's fully fermanted, so the tea leaves were dark, and here comes the Black Tea. So why the Chinese call the Red Tea? Of course,we later on decided it's actually not bad to drink so people started to mass produce it, and therefore, the way we name it is based on how the tea is being processed and for this type of tea, it also reference to the red edges of the formantted tea leaves and also the color of the liquid ;)

However, I would like to point out that in China, we do have Chinese Black Tea too, but it's very different than the Red Tea, so make sure you order the one you want when you are travelling in China :) the person from the tea house is serving you what you want :)