Beginner in the Tea World

Hi, a friend of mine is really into teas and at first I didn’t pay much attention but then I started watching her bringing teaware and different kinds and like very fruit teas, like strawberry with peach and things like that. I really really like UK, I’m a designer so I like the whole architecture and history of the country and well I got curious in their tea habit so I decided to give it a try. I told my friend that I didn’t like very much the idea of drinking like hot tea, and she said to me that I could drink it cold like iced. SO then I went to a little tea and herbs shop in town and bought Lemon Vanilla Tea, I love vanilla! and lemon so I thought it was a good start. The smell was good but I mean it was kind of dense, I got to my home and thought of drinking it cold but I didn’t make sense to me, so I boiled some water pour it in a regular coffee mug, I read there’s different types of temperatures to every tea and the girl didn’t say what kind it was but I figured it was white so I boiled the water not to hot. Put the loose leaf in the infuser and let it steep in the cup. At first I thought the flavor was too mild, but very very mild, what really caught me what the smell, then a couple of days later my 3rd cup I could actually taste the vanilla and the mild lemon flavor, I ended totally loving it!

As a designer and a person I’m super curious so I wanted to try another kinds of tea, so I bought Orange Rooibos and Vanilla Granade I think. The Vanilla lemon had a greenish color, very subtle so I figured this one would too, so I served the Orange and the color was too dark, (I don’t like very dark food) so I tried it hot and the Vanilla Lemon, the smell was as the name orange, but the flavor was very very strong like it has more things than orange but I could only taste the orange. Then the Vanilla Granade for me I imagined it like a morning tea, it was vanilla and some pineapple so I served it hot as well, and the smell was there, I could only smell pineapple but the worst was the flavor, it was like drinking regular water. I tried both of them with milk and the only thing different was the milk covering the original flavor, I felt I was cheating.

So I was wandering here in some discussions here and reading some of you have the tea with Splenda or sugar or those german rocks, or with milk. As I said I loved the Vanilla Lemon tea and would like to definitely continue in the ta world but I feel there are some things I have to know first, I really don’t want to just buy teas based on their scent and just hoping it taste good. I would like to know like what teas can be combined with milk or what teas to sweetened. I said I didn’t fancy much black food so black tea doesn’t really call me and haven’t tried it but I imagine the taste very robust, very hard and I really loved the mild flavor like the Lemon Vanilla tea. Hope you can help me!