What should I use to brew tea? (A question from a beginner)

Amazed at the awesome responses. Experts.

Wow, wonderful responses all around. Always excited to hear about folks exploring the world of tea. Welcome!

You mentioned you are a student and may want to consider a travel infuser mugs for your tea on-the-go. You can often find them in organic food markets (I got one at Wegman’s) or a wide selection online http://everythingfortea.com/product-category/infuser-travel-mugs/

I drink a lot of herbal tea, and my husband prefers iced tea, so I have some cotton tea bags I got on amazon (I use an electric kettle, and brew the tea in a mug. These work especially well for the fine herbal teas), and a 2 quart pitcher with a built in infuser. Like everyone else said, it depends on what kinds of tea you drink regularly, and what fits your lifestyle.

I’d spend your money on trying different teas and just stick to your teamaker thing for now or get a glass pot with infuser so you can see the tea brewing and watch the process. When you know what types of tea you want it may influence the teaware you then buy.

What did I get to start with. Well I got a glass pot with infuser and some ceramic pots, 3 x yixing pots, 1 x cast iron and two tea makers and an electric Breville Tea Maker. I don’t use most of that on a day to day basis.

I do find scales useful as a newbie its hard to work out what 5g of a certain tea looks like. On Amazon you can get mini scales that measure in a very detailed way and they cost me about £6. A small investment but once I know how much tea to use for a 350ml cup then I can weigh it out so that i’m brewing the right amount.

Other investments? Storage tins would be good, I use generic airtight containers that you get for food storage, labelled up with the tea, where from and the date purchased. You buy some nice tea but then don’t store it airtight where its dark and dry.

You can take this hobby as far as you want but for me its about drinking and enjoying tea above everything else, not whose got the prettiest tea pot