[bump!]

Please indulge my dumb question! I am a tea drinker, but always with tea bags rather than loose tea (except for long-ago visits to London, when I poured the tea they gave me at the restaurant through a strainer). My neighbor recently ordered a bunch of different kinds of loose tea and she very kindly gave some to me. She also lent me a strainer, a little metal ball on a chain and one of the IngenuiTea cups that JillM posted about above (so many years ago ). I plan to buy something so I can return the gadgets to her -- I'm leaning toward this because it seems simple, will fit in a drawer and is made by a good company:

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/stor...xo+tea+infuser

I generally make tea one cup at a time by filling my mug with tap water and heating it up in the microwave. I really don't have time or patience for anything more complex than that. I do have a few large mugs which I sometimes use, and they hold 2-3 times as much as a normal mug. But regardless of the size of the mug, I make one mug at a time and that's it.

Anyway here's the dumb question -- I have NO idea how to make tea with these loose leaves. No idea how much tea to use per serving. When I do an internet search I find way too much detail about the type of water to use and complicated charts with brewing times for different varieties. I think my neighbor gave me black tea (four different flavors to try). It's definitely not green.

Every time I see her she asks if I've tried the tea yet, so I need to try it soon. Can anyone give me simple instructions? Is there such a thing as a simple way to make tea with loose leaves??

Thanks very much!!!