In the cup or in the pot

Neither as I can't stand the stuff. If I'm making it for others though it's cup for one and teapot if for more than one. Mind you most people don't ask twice for my tea!

Have you thought about Earl Grey?

while I own a teapot and have teabags in the house there isn't anyone living here who likes tea!!

it's coffee all the way in my household.

Definitely bone china and definitely in a pot, brewed for 5 minutes - it releases the antioxygens so therefore healthier.

Wish I could find tea leaves in France, but even have to get teabags from UK as French ones are grim. But in my studio I don't really have room for cup and saucer so has to be a mug. Those sold in art galleries are good and aesthetically pleasing.

My DDIL bought me a teapot with cup in a lovely CRM design - but it poured everywhere but in the cup! So now it is decoration. So be warned about that jingle if you are going to buy one. Test in the shop with water first!

Wouldn't dare to work out how much we spend on tea as I couldn't possibly economise on this. Every morning my OH brings me a large pot in bed, it takes about three mugs and I can't get out of bed without these!

At one dinner party that was all French except for us, I started a revolution when I revealed that I had always been brought tea in bed by one male or other. The French wives were amazed, then decided to get on the band wagon and their husbands had a bad time of it. The husbands looked daggers at me, and at OH for doing it! Haven't dare enquire if they are all now taking bed tea to their wives.

My parents were constantly making tea and I vowed, when I left home in 1976, never to drink the stuff again. And I haven't. I enjoy a good cup of coffee

I drink neither tea nor coffee - it makes it a bit awkward sometimes when I'm out so I usually opt for a glass of water with lemon.
I drink fruit tea first thing and a herb tea with breakfast - but after 2pm I allow myself a Belgian beer!

Fantastic response.....so glad I am not the only teapot user....and so many use tea laces too. Wonderful.
For those who dunk in he cup.....do a taste test....make a cup with the bag in the cup and one with a teapot...and taste the difference.......plus ....if you are doing multiple cups.....a large pot can be cost effective......
Thank you everyone for your responses.

For me tea tastes disgusting however it is made ! The same goes for coffee. So much easier to turn on the tap and get a glass of water when I am thirsty.

Teapot with strainerand ASSAM tea lovely

DH insists on pot, always but when home alone I often just make mine in cup for speed
When DD visits hers is made in her own sadly stained mug because she likes hers so strong

I have yet to find a pot which pours decently, so I am reluctant to make tea in one. If we have visitors, I make a thermos of tea and leave it on the table - that keeps quite well for an hour or two. It's better if I add the milk before the water. If it's our sons staying, I know they drink it like that anyway.

Otherwise, as I'm the only one in our household who drinks what the Germans call black tea, I make it in the mug. Here again, I put the milk in before the water. That way I don't get the unsightly film on top. It tastes different every time, so a comparison with a pot-made tea would be interesting but not definitive.

Yesterday, for example, I had two cups first thing (one at home, one in the office) which were both delicious. This morning, exactly the same tea made the same way tasted "meh". Go - as they say - figure!

I always mash tea in the pot, it just doesn't taste the same otherwise. I either drink it in a cup or a mug, depending on mood!

Definitely a pot - it tastes so much better. I also find it tastes better in a bone china mug or cup.

I agree about tea tasting better from bone china but I admit to earl grey tea bags in mugs, black and weak. I'm sure that is someone's nightmare!

Earl Grey, in a pot for us. We also like it weak and black, so 1 teabag makes a good pot, and we get 3 mugs each.

I never buy teabags - I read recently that someone wanted to start a campaign to have them banned as they are so wasteful but I doubt it would ever succeed as most people seem to use them.

I always use loose tea in a pot (warmed first), usually Yorkshire tea or Typhoo or a supermarket own brand. I recently emailed Lidl to ask them to stock loose tea (builders, not Earl Grey, fruit or herbal) as they don't stock it in our local branch. Would anyone else like to back me up? I was glad to see from this forum that I am not the only loose tea customer left.

I am a tea addict. I used to drink about six large mugsful a day when I was teaching or my voice seized up!

I use large, very thin porcelain mugs to make my tea and put the water in first, dipping the teabag for a fraction of a second as I like ultra weak tea.

When I am making tea at the weekend for the DH and myself I use the teapot and for special occasions I use my lovely Spode Blue Italian teapot.

And I am a peasant so I use teabags. Leaves are too classy and too strong for me.

I rarely drink tea (hot water addict) but friends visiting enjoy a small tray with teapot and knitted cosy, small jug milk and bone china mug. As others say, it does give a 2nd cuppa, and keeps everything neat and tidy. We have a variety of teapots and lots of little jugs, glass and china which I enjoy using.

Loose tea, a mix of Earl Grey and Assam, proper tea pot, strainer, bone china - delicious.

We do have tea bags in the house because certain people - who shall remain nameless - prefer "builder's" tea. And, every now and then, it is exactly what the doctor ordered - with sugar. And chocolate biscuits.

In the mug, unless we have visitors. I have to remove a normal teabag fairly quickly before it gets too strong, so often use white tea. I leave it in, and top up with hot water as I go along. Don' take milk in anything. Prefer coffee, though, but not instant. Use a one cup cafetière if just for myself, and, likewise, top it up with hot water.
Agree with everyone, tea tastes better in bone china

Beware. My cousin drinks so many cups of tea in a day, that she literally has withdrawal symptoms if denied. When she had to have a general anaesthetic ,she felt very sick before she went to theatre, due to 'nil by mouth', and begged the nurses to have tea waiting for her when she got back to ward. They did oblige!

I personally always make it in the teapot, and it has to be a china mug!, I have 2 teapots, a larger one for when people come around, and a smaller one just for me.

Teapot every time, and bone china usually a mug as cups are too small!
Loose tea if I remember but cannot always remember a strainer UGH!

Always a teapot, I have several sizes. In a large mug that is not too thick. Yorkshire tea mainly bags but do love leaves.
I always find in making it in a cup/mug leaves a sort of scum on top and by the time the milk is put in the tea is almost cold.

i have an Old Hall stainless steel teapot that pours beautifully. It was a wedding present for first wedding in 1970, I wouldn't be without it. I do have a surplus of silver teapots - about six! Somehow managed to inherit them all, with accompanying bits and pieces. They get used infrequently but look lovely and rarely need polishing due to very low levels of air pollution in this backwater. Some china ones too.

I loved tasting all the different teas on my business travels around India and Sri Lank. To me Darjeeling is the champagne of teas. I went on a tea plantation tour once near Kandy. They told us the tea dust on the factory floors went into tea bags!