So as a way of weaning myself away from less healthy beverages I’ve began a little foray into teas. Does anyone have things like little cheat sheets/charts, dos and don’ts or even just general tea recommendations for someone who has no real tea knowledge?
This is a good article: The Non-Judgmental Guide to Getting Seriously Into Tea
You should try different types of teas. Teas are classified into 6 categories: White, green, yellow, black, oolong and post-fermented (also known as puer or puerh). Puerh is further divided into ripe (shu) and raw (sheng) puerh. Also teas from different countries have their own characteristics. Try them all, and find your favorites.
Supermarket teas, whether teabags or loose leaf, aren’t very good in general. Of course, there are exceptions, and if flavored teas is what you like, there’s plenty of those in markets. But if you want good loose leaf teas, you need to buy from tea shops. Here’s a long list of online tea shops around the world. You can use the search feature to filter the list. If you, for example, want to find shops that sell teaware and are based in United Kingdom, you can search for “teaware kingdom”.
If you want to buy teaware, a good rule for what to buy is this: Spend the money on tea instead. Don’t buy some crazy expensive clay pots, when a simple porcelain gaiwan (cup with a lid) does the job perfectly.
Well said! You get what you pay for with tea, to an extent. Just spending twice as much as you would for supermarket tea can get into some good quality teas. Online shops are where I buy all of my tea. I do wish I had a quality local tea shop though.