Wooooo, I\'ll try to go easy on you for now and will try not to drown you in all the details, theory and so on for starters.
But you have to know some bare basics, in any case:
~ Green, Red, Black? ~
It\'s all the same plant, the only reason is how long and strong it was left to ferment. Green tea is almost unfermented, black is strongly fermented, red (a.k.a. Oolong) is somewhere in between. There is also white tea, which is green tea that\'s so light it doesn\'t even have that green tone.
The darker it is (you can also see it in the colour the tea shows in the cup), the stronger it is, basically.
Green (and white) teas should be left in water that is just short of starting to boil for 2-3 minutes. Oolongs for 2-5 (depending on the type). And black teas usually 3-5 in water that just started to boil.
note: Some (usually Indian) black teas like
Darjeeling tend to have a ruby-red colour. Those are techincally black teas.
~ Got milk? ~
There\'s a simple rule: you can put milk into black teas. And even then not in all -
Darjeeling (especially a first flush!), as an example, is mild in taste already and is too gentle to go well with milk.
But in the end, I\'ve seen people even drink white teas with milk - it looks wierd, but whatever rocks your boat...
~ Teabags? ~
Well, the best way is to let the loose tea leaves swim in the water and filter them out just before filling the tea into the teapot or cup.
Also it\'s common practice that what you get in teabags is broken tea or even dust (as a gradation of tea!) ...which are very finely ground tea leaves.
But for starters, teabags could serve you quite well.
~ Dust? Fannings? WTF? ~
Oh, well ...I asked for it, I guess...
This is the gradation of how finely the tea leaves are ground (intentionally or not!). The finer - the stronger/tippier (tippy is a tea word for what can be vaguelly described as bitter) the taste.
Dust - well ...the name says it all o_O
Broken - all the leaves are broken ...most common in teabags (you might know it from Broken Orange Pekoe)
Fannings - some leaves are broken, but cca. a half is left whole
Loose - all the tea leaves are whole :]
Gunpowder - whole leaves of green/white (hand)rolled into small ball shapes
...well, and in some cases of expensive green/white tea, you get them rolled into other shapes.
If you liked
Prince of Wales, you might like stuff black teas that are either pure
Keemun,
Yunan,
Ceylon or
Assam ...or blends made out of them. Yunan and Ceylon could be a bit much for a tea-noobie, but you never know. I\'d recomend you try something like
Scottish Breakfast or
Irish Breakfast (both from Taylors of Harrogate).
Yorkshire Gold is also a great choice ...especially as cream tea :]
heh, I think I got a bit carried away, but this is still not half of what you still have to learn
