The first of our Golden Teahouse reviews does not make for a good start. I've put it up despite not completing what I call the 'website experience' of dealing with the people selling the tea, because the quality here deserves to be known. There's a big lack of reviews out there for this place, so I feel a responsibility to get this one out. The first brew, done according to the website's instructions, tasted like death. It was literally like having a campfire, letting it go out, then eating what was left over the next morning. At US$30 per 100g, I was extremely unimpressed. When you're paying that sort of money for tea, you want decent tea.
After research, I decided to do this "Gong Fu Cha" style. This involves lots of tea in small volumes of water for very short periods, and the 'correct' method of making Chinese tea.
Brewing Instructions: If you like charcoal, brew 1 to 2 tablespoons of leaves per cup of boiling water for 30 seconds. I used 4 tablespoons of tea in 180mL of boiling water, rinsed first then brewed for the following times per steep: 6 seconds, 4 seconds, 6 seconds, 8 seconds and then 10 seconds.
Leaf Appearance: Dark, well roasted whole leaves.
Dry Aroma: Vaguely sweet, raisin notes. Upon smelling each leaf individually, I noted some smelt sweet and others smelt charcoaly.
Brewed Aroma: Smokey with only the vaguest hint of that sweetness. My teapot now smells of campfire with notes of bad houjicha.
Flavour: Significantly better brewed in this shorter style, but that doesn't say anything really. The first steep tastes unremarkably bland, with a charcoal/smoke finish. The second steep tastes the same. By the third steep, we're beginning to shift more towards a bland, lowest-quality houjicha. The fourth steep has slight astringency and increased bitterness, with notes of burnt coffee. The fifth steep initially has no flavour, then more burnt coffee notes.
Rating: 0.5 out of 5 (for gong fu cha style)
0 out of 5 (for their suggested brewing style) - as prepared through their recommended process, this is easily the worst tea I have ever drunk. Even with Gong Fu Cha style, it's still incredibly bad, made worse by the cost of the tea. It's $30 per 100g! You want at least passable quality for this! I specifically looked up a review of a 'very average' Da Hong Pao (link: http://puerh.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/china-cha-dao-da-hong-pao.html) from Bearsblog, and it seems that Bearsblog's sample at $23 per 500g offers a superior quality to what I have here. Other than that, there's nothing more to say except that I need to soak my teapot to get the smell out.
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