Update 1/11/2021
After receiving feedback from the IPoT folks on how to brew this tea, we did another session and brewed western style, about 3g and 250ml of water for about 3 minutes. The result was quite different than the original, and the tea was delicious. None of the bitterness from when we brewed gong fu style. This was a very smooth tea with a slightly fruity note and some mineral notes too. We steeped it 3 times and found that it still had a nice mellow flavor the third time around. It’s a great tea that I can drink daily.
Original Review
I brewed this tea in Gong fu style in a 120 ml gaiwan with 5 grams of tea and 97C to 100C filtered water. After one rinse, the first infusion -10 seconds - started with a roasted flavor that then turned somewhat bitter. The second infusion - 12 seconds - was super, super bitter throughout the whole mouth, overwhelmingly so., with also a strong astringency. The third infusion - about 20 sec - started to mellow out, still somewhat bitter and astringent.
I typically drink Chinese teas, and this was my first Darjeeling, which I bought for a friend who likes Indian teas, so it's possible that this is to be expected from Darjeeling or perhaps if it is brewed gong fu style with high leaf to water ratio - I don't really know. Nevertheless, I did not like how bitterness and strong astringency, which I do not encounter often in the Chinese teas I drink. I left the tea with my friend, who will probably drink it with milk and sugar to cut the bitterness.
I'll have to try some other Indian black teas to see if this is a common experience or just this particular tea. Not my favorite.