forestofglory

I start pretty much every day with a teapot of Darjeerling tea, shared with my husband. The pot I have has a little strainer that sits in the top of the pot, so it's easy to fill that with a spoonful of tea, then boil water and let it sit in the teapot for five minutes or so.

If I want to have just a cup, or if my husband and I want to have different types of loose leaf tea, we use infusers like this. You put a spoonful of tea leaves in the infuser, boil water, and hang the infuser in the mug, leaving in there to brew until it's ready.

When I said I wasn't a tea connoisseur, I meant that if I really cared about all this stuff, I would be weighing the tea leaves out on a scale, boiling the water to a specific temperature (which would vary depending on the type of leaves), and leaving it to brew for a specified amount of time (which would again vary depending on the leaves) — but all that seems way too fussy for me, so all my tea brews with boiling water poured directly into the cup/pot, and sits there either for five minutes, or until the colour seems right.