Learn me Steeping Loose Leaf Tea

Tea has been my drink of choice since a child. Loose leaf tea is a an interesting world. Many people drink infusions that contain no actual tea plant. It is unclear what your goal is. I much prefer WHOLE leaf tea in loose or bagged form. 

Loose leaf tea is primarily for allowing you to tailor strength of flavor and cooking with tea. 

The full leaf tea types I prefer are:

1. Pi lo Chun
2. Keemun
3. A puer from a certain region I can't remember.
4. The new Lipton Pure Leaf brand has some nice full leaf teas.
5. Revolution teas are also nice. 

Bagged or loose broken tea I have found Taylor's of Harrogate to make the best tea by far.

Teavana had a tea infusor that is the best, it had very fine holes in the walls allow water in but fewer leaves out. But with any loose leaf tea there will be bits to chew or spit as you desire this is normal. 

The biggest learning curve for exploring tea is learning how to use the equipment you have. Others have posted about special tea makers, plain coffee makers, and just listening to the water boil. My gear is constantly evolving.  I found using a good filtered or bottled filtered water makes the biggest difference in taste. How I heated it wasn't as critical. Whole leaf teas of good quality can go two or three steepings. 

If you are going all in then find a tea shop and ask to sample a lot of their teas. If they are good they will talk to you about how to do it at home. 

I see no negatives to my tea drinking. My wife eventually got used to me using a cup, steeping vessel, and infuser for a drink, instead of just a cup. The cost can be higher but I see it the same as buying any higher quality food. It is just like choosing some local high quality apple juice over generic apple flavored drink. 

+1 on good filtered water. Reminds me that I need to look at the reverse osmosis system we have at the new house, because I don't think that's been maintained for years.

IME water temperature makes more difference when you're using higher end green and white teas as they really don't like boiling water. Usually it's not noticeable the first time you steep them, but if you try to re-use the leaves a couple of times (which is perfectly fine with good quality tea), it tends to be noticeable.

I have one of these

Works like a charm.  The only drawback I have found is that it sometimes lacks the capacity for the strength I like, but in those cases I just use a smaller mug/less water.

Black teas you can usually make a tar-like cup of tea (which I like) but some of the lighter herbal/green/fresh teas it doesn't hold enough to make a strong tea.  Still great tea if you get the water volume right, but not strong.

Grizz said:

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

You might like this too then, it replaced Irish breakfast for me.


E: That said my favorite tea is Lapsang Suochong, which is ridiculously strong and smokey tasting. I want to get a tin of Russian Caravan tea, as it's supposed to be great

Hey!  I found the Taylor's Scottish at my local Publix.  It's quite pleasant!

For loose leaf tea, it is better to go with a [canoe], especially a freshwater one.

It can prevent the loose [canoes] come into the [fog/soup].  Also you can Enjoy more about the [paddling's] fragrance.

Drink more booze. That's all I have to offer. 

In reply to nutherjrfan :

I'm sure to get lambasted for this, but we make perfectly good black tea in our drip coffee maker.

I know, I know, water temperature, yadda yadda.  But we use a solid amount of tea and the short steeping time means it comes out strong but not tannic.

[edit]  Ahhh - zombie canoe revivalist.