lol, im british...
so a good black tea steeped in BOILING water from a kettle then tranfered with the tea into a pot and left to stew (but kept HOT)
in the uk even the teabags are good (nothing close to loose but i dont like my tea all that strong either) and a favorite was PJ tips.
add milk and sugar (lemon and honey if your sick) and a couple biscuits on the side for dunkin!
Yup, another anglophile here.. I just don't DO coffee, never touch the stuff.. Tea is what the english nation is brought up on, anyone who comes in is offered tea.. I remember when I was about 3 asking for a cup of tea with a straw, mum used to make it half tea, half milk.. But always with 2 sugars. I used to pronounce it.. "Tup tea wiv a straw"
My mother brings me Tea from the UK, I particularly like Yorkshire tea, but 90% of the time I drink PJ Tips because it's cheaper.. When you drink in the region of 10 cups or more a day, leaf tea gets costly!!
There are specifics to good tea making, if tea comes out of a pot, the milk and sugar have to go into the cup BEFORE the tea gets poured in.. But if you are making a single cup, then the tea bag has to have been brewed and removed before sugar and milk is added.. It's the law!
Unless of course it's earl grey, and earl grey should be served with lemon not milk, and if you want to be particularly Russian sweetened black cherries instead of sugar.
And of course you HAVE to have biscuits.. Digestives, Rich tea, shortbread, hob nobs, jammy dodgers, custard creams for dunkability!