Good choice OP sir
Welcome to a world of flavoursome tea
You'll probably want an infuser, basically a wire mesh ball that you put your tea leaves in for mugs of tea. Some good tea pots come with an infuser, if you're going to be having loose leaf then I'd recommend getting one, then you wont really need a strainer too much.
Assam and Ceylon are a good place to start also look out for Russian Caravan, it's lovely
Darjeeling, Lapsang and Earl Grey take a bit of getting used to because of their different flavour IMO, but definitely worth it.
I also enjoy Nilgiri, Keemun, Yunnan, Kenyan and other blends as well as Jasmine and Oolong.
Loose leaf tea is graded:
- Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (FTGFOP) Extremely high quality
- TGFOP. Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (TGFOP) Similar to GFOP, but with an even higher proportion of golden tips.
- Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (GFOP) A higher quality tea, that includes the golden tips of the young buds leaves.
- Flowery Orange Pekoe (FOP) Similar to OP, but used for teas from the rest of India or other regions.
- Orange Pekoe (OP) A good quality tea, consisting of large leaf pieces. Used for teas from Sri Lanka or south India.
- Broken Orange Pekoe (BOP) Tea with many small or broken pieces of leaves.
- Fannings / Dust The tiny bits and pieces, usually leftovers from processing. Commonly found in tea bags.
Try and find a good tea specialist shop where you can probably try out different types, or alternatively order online from somewhere like Whittard or Tea Palace.
You want roughly 1 tspn of leaves per cup (and 1 extra for the pot). Loose leaf also needs more time to brew compared to the fannings in tea bags, because of the reduced total surface area. Remove the leaves and then (if necessary) add the bare minimum amount of milk, too much and it'll spoil the flavour. Definitely don't add sugar.
