Cha gao translates to “tea paste”, but it’s actually a dried and compressed tea extract. The basic process involves boiling tea into a condensed liquid, drying it into a powder, and then aging the resulting extract.
It’s typically sold in the form of small compressed squares.
It takes about a kilogram of tea to produce approximately 200 grams of cha gao tea.
Some collectors of Yixing teaware use cha gao tea to season their teapots.
Although this type of tea has been produced since the Qing dynasty, whatever techniques were used by the imperials of that era were lost in the sands of time. It is not clear whether or not modern techniques are similar to the ancient methods.
Alternate Names
- Tea Paste
Aroma & Flavor Profile
While the flavor of cha gao tea depends on the material it was produced from, it is often quite astringent.