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In Chinese and culturally related languages, black tea is known as red tea (紅茶, Mandarin hóngchá, Japanese kōcha), perhaps a more accurate description of the color of the liquid.
While green tea usually loses its flavor within a year, black tea preserves its flavor for several years (over 50 years in the special case of Pu-erh tea). It has thus long been an article of trade, and compressed bricks of black tea even served as a form of de facto currency in Mongolia, Tibet and Siberia in the 19th century. Black tea was traditionally the only tea known to western culture; though green tea has been catching on somewhat in the U.S., black still accounts for over ninety percent of all tea sold in the west.