First is the fast cup. Nuke a cup with tea bags in for 2 and a half minutes, fuck around while walking when it beeps, mix it up. Drink. It gets the job done fine overall, but you lose spme of the delicate flavors from any tea.
Second is the almost as fast, but better. Nuke the water for three minutes, add preferred tea, wait four minutes and enjoy.
Third is more traditional and gives the best tea. Since I don't have a kettle that will keep hot water ready, I bring the water to a boil in a pot. Loose tea only, no bags, in a steeper in the cup. Pour water over tea, wait four minutes, begin fixing.
I'm a sweet and milky guy. Two sugars, splash of milk for an 8 ounce mug. It's almost always earl grey, though I will do chai. That being said, every now and then I have breakfast tea (English or Irish) with one sugar and lemon.
Iced tea I do southern style. Big pitcher, super strong, lots of sugar. Sometimes lemon, but usually not.
I have a really nice Bodum glass kettle that I use every day. I usually drink it with a bit of honey. For chai, black tea, and other dessert-y teas, I like to add a bit of milk (powdered or almond).
I really like disposable, compostable tea bags. They're made of the same stuff as coffee filters. But tbh I use pre bagged most days because I'm lazy.
It's been a while since I've had tea and it's not fancy or anything but what I did was I would start off with either an unsweetened green or black tea bag (just whatever I had at the time) and steep it in twice as much water that was recommended on the box. After I removed the tea bag, I would then add a lemonade drink mix and either 1 packet of sugar for green tea or 2 packets of sugar for black tea.
I don't remember any specific combinations of brands but I think I remember sweeter lemonades working better with green tea and tart lemonades working better with black tea. Just avoid True Lemon, I haven't tried their other drink mixes but I remember the regular lemonade drink mix being terrible in tea.
Whatever black tea steeped for slightly longer than whatever it says, teaspoon or two of sugar, and a splash of milk. I mostly drink black coffee though.
Tea bag in a mug. Boil the kettle. Pour boiling water into mug. Give it a little stir and leave it for a couple of minutes. Remove tea bag. Add sugar and milk to desired taste.
I’d say that’s probably the way most brits make a cup of tea.
Whether or not you have sugar is quite controversial too. I was raised in a "look down on the sugar people" family. Some people are more live and let live. I think I try to be the latter but if you say you want 3 sugars I have my nans voice in my head going "If you hate the taste of tea that much just have something else".
I've adopted my wife's tea. Within 10 seconds of the water going in she adds the milk. Give it a few squeezes and take the bag out.
I know this will upset people but it's just personal preference. I know people who come to visit hate it as it's too weak. I used to have them stronger but actually prefer her weaker ones now.
An electric kettle for the water and loose tea with a strainer. I'll usually make it in a mug, occasionally a small teapot, or a thermos if I'm traveling.
Electric kettle for the water, poured over a bag of strong black tea in a glass, with a bit of sugar. As far as brand goes, I'm not all that picky, just so long as it's black and plain and relatively strong. Mostly it's Tetley or Twining's English Breakfast.
I drank coffee pretty much exclusively for years. I'd drink tea occasionally, and I always liked it well enough, but it just couldn't hold my interest. The thing that made the difference was drinking it out of a glass.
One day, some years ago, I noticed a scene of Russians drinking tea in a restaurant in a movie and started thinking about it. I was aware that they drank hot tea in glasses, but I'd never really considered it before. I had a nice set of institutional quality highball glasses that I'd gotten from a restaurant that went out of business, so I decided to give it a try. And I've never looked back.
As near as I can figure it out, using a glass just made it a complete and satisfying experience. I think that's part of the reason that tea had never held my interest before - I didn't have a satisfying way to drink it, day in and day out. I never liked teacups - they're just too small and dainty to be satisfying. And trying to drink it out of a mug was sort of weird - as if my mouth was expecting coffee and was surprised, and a bit disappointed, to get tea instead. But the glass makes it its own thing, and makes it satisfying in and of itself.
I boil water in a sauce pot on the stove. Slosh it into my mug. Plunk in a tea bag and set the timer on my microwave for 3:30 so that I don't forget and over-steep it. No milk. No sugar.