I absolutely love tea and drink it all the time.
If you want the “whole experience” then you should follow @janbb‘s advice from the first post at the top. That being said, I think tea bags are perfectly fine. I don’t have the time to mess around with loose tea and tea balls, although it’s really fun to do that, especially if you have friends over.
I actually don’t like the tea balls, though, because they seem not to infuse enough of the tea into the water. I prefer the little unbleached paper strainers that some tea places use. It kind of looks like a conical paper towel and they put the loose tea in there, then they slide a little popsicle stick like thing through the top of the cone and hang the cone in the hot water. I think you get more tea infused, but don’t have to worry about getting any of the floaters.
I have recently become aquainted with the fact that you can also cook with tea. Both the leaves and the drink. Apparently using tea in food dishes has always been done in Asian cooking, but I never even heard about it until recently. So don’t go throwing out your used tea leaves so quickly. You can eat that stuff and it’s full of antioxidants and lends a different flavor component to certain foods. You can read a little bit about that here
Here is a good article in the Chicago Tribune all about cooking with tea, with recipes.
Here is a site that talks about baking with tea and has a bunch of recipes. Who knew?
As for drinking I agree with starting out with either English Breakfast or Irish Breaksfast and then moving forth to Earl Grey (at which point you will be come addicted and might not be able to move on to anything else) but then check in with Chai and Ooolong and then Lapsang Souchang which has a decidely smoky flavor which you will love or hate. Then you can try some of the Japanese green teas like gunpowder tea and green matcha. You can read a little about Japanese Green Teas
If you get really serious about this tea drinking business, then you might want to learn about and eventually participate in a Japanese Tea Ceremony
In the meantime you might want to consider hosting a traditional English Tea
Dainty sandwiches with the crust cut off are often served at an English tea. Here are some recipes to get you started.
Onion Sandwiches
Watercress Sandwiches
Curried Egg Salad Sandwiches
Chicken Salad with Apples and Walnuts
Asian Tuna Salad
Pimento Cheese Rollups
Usually and English Tea will have 3 or 4 sandwiches (with the crusts cut off and set onto one of those tiered serving platters like this) and then there will be a couple of salads. I’ll give you a few ideas:
Apple Waldorf Salad with Cranberries
Butter Lettuce Salad with Lemon-Garlic Vinaigrette
Asian Napa Cabbage Salad with Peanut Butter Dressing
Cold Sesame Noodle Salad
And of course you will need some dessert. Below are some possibilities:
Scottish Shortbread Cookies
Glazed Lemon Bundt Cake
Gingerbread Cake
English Trifle
My cousin threw an English tea party for our other cousin’s baby shower. She went around to thrift stores and bought inexpensive, and mismatched (on purpose) fancy looking cups, saucers and tea pots. It was so much fun. She even bought extra teapots and put the flower arrangements in those. She served items that were similar to what I listed above. All of the women wore big fancy hats. It was super casual, but we all looked like we just flew in from London.
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