My husband buys several excellent tea from Simpson and Vail. I fill in the holes, and get a golden Yunnan, Japanese rice tea, and iron goddess of mercy tea from Rishi. Rishi also sells some stuff in the supermarket. I found them by doing a taste test of various brands of roibos, a South African herbal tea, and liked theirs the best.
I have a tea pot with a metal mesh insert. I think of that as rather low tech, honestly. It also works really well. You might give it a try if you haven’t.
First of all, in a normal Chinese clay teapot (I assume these are sold in literally every tea shop, in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colours) there is a built-in strainer!
Otherwise, as @puzzlegal says just use any strainer: ceramic, metal, it doesn’t matter.
The glass ones with the removable metal insert
seem more designed to brew a quantity of tea (more than 1 cup, or perhaps ultra-concentrated), then you can pull out the metal thing and not drink the entire brew at once.
By “sieve”, i meant something like this
I use something like this, a cast iron tea pot that came with a deep sieve fitted to it. It’s very simple, works well, and feels elegant. If you flip through the images, you can see what i mean.
We order our tea online from David’s Tea, a Canadian company. They have all kinds of wacky flavor blends, some of which can be fun, but we generally just get their unblended loose leaf. Their orange pekoe is very good, for example. They also have some expensive and very high quality black and green teas, one of which - Nepal Black - is one of my top 3 teas of all time. It’s absolutely gorgeous - kind of halfway to hot chocolate in its depth without any added flavors or ingredients. They also have all kinds of matcha, if you’re into that.
Side note, we just returned from the Azores, which features the only remaining tea plantation in Europe, Gorreana Tea. You can tour the fields and the factory and watch them drying, sorting, etc. We picked up some loose leaf from there and it’s good, packed about three days before we bought it 
I am an immigrant from India. We like the subtle darjeelings and teas with delicate flavors.
We totally dislike “chai tea” or the teas with a liberal helping of whatever spice someone likes lying around. To my horror, I have seen turmeric, gingers, cinnamon, cardamom etc etc all bundled into tea. Whoever is doing this, please stop
Having said the above, if you like a strong black tea, then please try the teas from Kenya. They are very nice - usually available at African grocery stories.
I would not use that sieve, because the holes in that sieve is much too large and it will make your tea cloudy / less enjoyable.
Instead visit a local Indian grocery store and ask for a similar sieve. Look for sieves with two layers of sieve cloths. The one at the bottom should be larger mesh size (bigger holes) and the one on the top should be fine mesh size (smaller holes). The smaller mesh cloths are fragile and the bigger mesh is used as support.
It is available at Japanese stores too
https://www.amazon.com/Norpro-2152-Stainless-Double-Strainer/dp/B0000VLXOQ
David’s Tea has a “Kenyan Tinderet” available that is unlike any tea I’ve had before - it comes in what I can only describe as tiny pellets. It is strong, and I’m glad I tried it, but it wasn’t my favorite.
I really like Lifeboat. I got it from a online tea shop in Seattle. The tannin is a bit strong. I use 14 oz of water for 1 bag. Lemon,sugar and a few drops of milk
It’s available on Amazon
You are all awesome. Thank you. I am about to float away on a sea of tea.
I forgot to mention that Kenyan tea is best served with milk. Unlike the Darjeeling’s or similar subtle teas.
I also am thankful for this thread. I used to be a consummate coffee snob until a couple years ago and then switched fully to tea. I’m always on the lookout for a good loose leaf black tea.
Has anyone here tried Zabar’s tea? A family member visiting NYC said they tried it and it was very good. But between the price of the tea and the shipping I’m not to hot to try it without some verification.
I have become somewhat snobby about my tea, and like to buy grass that are whole leaves, or at least big pieces, without enough tea dust to make my brew cloudy.
Totally respect that. I grow a little bit of my own tea which I enjoy only on weekends. I like the fresh tender leaves without drying or freezing because they have more of the fragrance but none of the tartness / acidity.
I live in gardening zone 9, so the tea plants can stay outdoor all year around. We grow them in the shade. Camellia sinensis var. sinensis is the Chinese and Darjeeling variety, with small leaves - its very slow growing in our Houston climate. However, Camellia sinensis var. assamica is from Assam and much more used to the warm climate.
So summer months, I get to enjoy the fresh Assam tea while winter/spring is when I get Darjeeling. Its very easy to grow - plants are available usually in Indian nurseries.
Thanks but I have one of those in my office teapot, I loathe it and will get rid of it as soon as I can obtain a workable and good-quality combination of plain-round-empty-ceramic-teapot and separate strainer-that-sits-on-the-cup.
Silver, yet: well that would certainly boost my tea-service-classiness quotient!
A good idea, thank you!
Kimstu, I hate cleaning the mesh insert in my teapot, too. You’re making a good case for a strainer balanced on top of a cup which cleans easier than the mesh. Now you’ve got me thinking I want one of these English things. Here’s a long-handled version of the same device. Hmmm.
Huh, i would think they are exactly as easy to clean. I clean mine by holding it upside down under the kitchen faucet until all the tea leaves have fallen off. (After first dumping most of them into the compost bin. But the ones that remain get rinsed off.)
Let me mention yet another Chinese invention: the lidded bowl
The lid is used to block the tea leaves when you go to sip it.
I use a cheap Ikea French press to strain the leaves.