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- At bare minimum you need a mug, a heat source and some tea. For heating, you technically can use a microwave, but really you should get a tea kettle, either stovetop or electric. A very simple electric water heater is all you need - temperature control is not super necessary for basic tea brewing, but a nice to have (I do use it myself a bit).
- The next step is deciding what tea you want, either satchels or loose leaf
- Satchels are definitely easier to manage. Many places have good quality tea satchels, but if you're getting stuff like Tazo or basic grocery store stuff, it's definitely the 'cheaper' stuff. But if you buy from a retailer online, they're perfectly fine. All you do is boil water, put the satchel in, steep for some amount of time, then remove. You overall have less options with satchels too, for exploring different types.
- Loose leaf is a bit more work but I do it myself. It's really not that much more work once you get into it. Your options with loose leaf are very vast. The only difference for loose leaf is to get a strainer (e.g. https://www.amazon.com/OXO-BREW-Tea-Infuser-Basket/dp/B07GF4WYGT/), that you sit in your mug, place tea leaves in and steep. You don't use a lot of leaves per cup of tea, and you can re-steep for a second/third cup easily with the same leaves. Then you discard the leaves afterwards.
- I use https://www.harney.com/ for pretty much all tea I buy, besides some local places. Never had an issue with quality once, and it's pretty reasonable. For example, I buy 1lb bag of Panyang Congou for $24, I drink a fair amount of tea, and that bag probably lasts 2 months.
- Any mug will do but I do use these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QLHV2R4. And you can buy a kettle steeper like this if you want https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LZSA84J/. But they are extras, and again all you really need is a cup steeper and a mug.
- As for types of tea:
- - White tea is very light, low/mid caffeine
- - Black tea is strong, mid/high caffeine
- - Green tea varies heavily
- - Oolong generally has a funky flavor with varying caffeine
- - Herbals standard don't have caffeine
- - There are various teas that break the mold, like 'rooibos'
- Caffeine is generally not tied to the type of tea as much as it is about the cultivation of tea plants at their stage in growth, so it's a bit sporadic. But even still, a cup of tea is generally a fraction of coffee's caffeine.
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