I heckin love tea

hey Veeky Forums, i'm a tea amateur and looking for tea recommendations + the best kind of teapot to buy. so far i've only been using teabags but i wanna step it up.

>heckin
watch the language, young man

mango and chili tea. if not, vanilla and caramel

Go to a gook store and getcha some cheap loose leaf. Yorkshire gold is the bomb for western tea

get a basic round teapot, glass works good since it lets you see the color of the infusion
or just go full oligarch with something from imperial porcelain

Nice. I"ve always told myself that I'd treat myself to a cobalt net set when I have a huge amounts of disposable income.

What sort of tea do you like? If you're going with blacks buy the cheapest bulk assam and Darjeeling you can find online. Imo anything else is a bit of a waste if youre just starting out, but even then you should be able to appreciate the step above generic teabags. Explore higher grades etc of whichever you like more. Generally Assam is with milk and Darjeeling is black, but the world is your oyster. There are also other regions for blacks, but those two should give you a good idea of distinctly different expressions of what tea can be. Another style of blacks is smoke, like yunnan, but that starts to get into chinese teas, which is another field.

Chinese teas culture/options are imo a lot more complex than western ones so i sort cbs going too much into it. Just keep in mind that China's tea market is sorta shitty in that theres a good chance that the most expensive shit you can buy online is probably going to be not as good as the cheap stuff that people can buy on the streets in China. Pretty much any shops/online shops that sell marketing to westerners is extremely diminishing returns so dont bother with anything outside of low tier stuff unless you can get a hookup from a chinese who travels back to china every year or something. There's also a decent chance you'll never drink actual high tier stuff in general, because 90% of it is "sold" to state officials/rich people before its even harvested.

I know nothing about Japanese teas, but there's a general around on /jp for that, so check that out if you're interested.

Middle of nowhere japan here. Red pill me on jap tea.

Fuck outta here with your dried leaves with flavoring added.

TEA MOTHERFUCKER, NOT FLAVORED DRY LEAVES, TEA!

this
I fucking hate it when I walk into a teashop and 80% of their tea is this strongly flavoured shit for middle-aged women
earl gray or jasmine tea can be good, but these perfumy concoctions always completely kill the taste of tea

Is earl grey okay?