I’m looking for good sturdy black tea that will stand up to milk and sugar. I live in rural SC, so anything more exotic than Tetley British Blend or, just possibly, PG Tips is not easy to come by. Loose tea that isn’t Earl Grey (gak.) is not to be found.
What’s your favorite plain black tea?
What’s a good online source for tea, either loose or bagged, that isn’t stupid expensive?
The Coffee and Tea Exchange is a place in Chicago that does mail order. I don’t know much about teas, but they have a large variety to choose from.
If you’re just looking for black tea, Awake by Tazo is popular in our home. It’ll stand up to whatever you want to add to it.
You might also like Mighty Leaf teas.
I buy from Harney and Sons. They have stupid expensive teas and they have low priced teas. Their Earl Grey is lower priced than the Twinings carried in my supermarket, for instance, while being considerably tastier. My supermarket hardly carries anything of worth anyway which is why I went looking for a good online seller too.
Their Scottish Morn is both a cheap tea and their strongest, with Irish Breakfast a close second. Their CTC Assam is also a very strong tea but of a straightforward flavor - the Scottish Morn and Irish Breakfast both use the CTC Assam leaves as a main component of their blends but use other tea leaves as well, so they have a more complex flavor.
When I’m not in the mood for the strongest tea they have I usually go for one of their Darjeelings or Keemuns. Hao Ya ‘B’ is probably my favorite straight black tea out of all of them, though it costs a little bit more. There’s also some African teas that have the quality of a Darjeeling for dirt cheap prices.
What’s wrong with Earl Grey?
MUCH too floral. I like the smell of bergamot in lotions, but I don’t like it on my tongue.
Oh! And thanks so far everyone, lots to peruse!
Oh right, Harney changes their selection based on the time of year and when the teas are in season. I learned the hard way that a tea with “Broken” in the name is a fair bit more bitter than a “CTC” (stands for “Cut Tear Cut”). The more ripped up a tea leaf is the more bitter it gets and it seems I don’t like anything more than CTC for my flavor to bitter ratio. If you can believe it, the “Broken” tea I got managed to stay very bitter even with sugar added. Might be just your style though.
If you like the distinctive smokey flavor of Lapsang Souchong, you can buy a relatively small amount of that and make a blend of your own with any other milder, cheaper black tea, even Orange Pekoe. The smokey taste is distinctive and carries through into the cup even with fairly small amounts.
David’s Tea has some great black teas that are strong without getting bitter, like Nepal Black and Gyokuro Black; but they are pretty expensive (over $5 and $6 per ounce respectively). Some of their blends are more in the $3-$4 per ounce range. One of my favorites is called Chocolate Chili Chai, (~$4 oz) and it tastes pretty much like you would expect. Strong, and great with milk.
Roddy
I like good ol’ Red Rose. I don’t know if they have it in your area, but it’s just a basic, good black tea. Not too expensive. (It is not rose-flavored, don’t worry.)
I double bag Red Rose to make a decent cup 
Interesting about the Lapsang Souchong, I’ll have to try that.
I love The Dope, you guys are great!
You can get a lot of strong English teas at the English Tea Store online. We’ve tried Typhoo and Yorkshire Tea, and Taylor’s of Harrogate’s Scottish Breakfast.
Stay away from Bigelow. But I have never found Twinings or many others to be too floral.
I only out some lemon in, never milk or sugar so I don’t know how much help I’ll be. I do like Twinnings Earl Grey and Irish Breakfast. I’ve been on an Irish Breakfast kick lately.
I will also second the Harney & Sons recommendation. They have some really good stuff.
No, no! Double bagging Red Rose just leads to a cup twice as bad! 
I highly recommend Upton Tea (http://www.uptontea.com/). Lots of really good teas of different varieties. For strong black tea I suggest trying one of their breakfast teas or Assam. If you want to try a tea with a slightly smoky flavor (less than Lapsang Souchong) try their Keemun. This is all loose leaf so you’ll want a infuser basket.
I drink Dilmah, which is a single origin black tea from Sri Lanka. It’s a pretty standard, but maybe higher end, every day kind of tea back home in Australia. Of course, I have to get it online here, but Amazon has it in reasonable prices.
I also buy most of my teas from Harney and Sons. I buy them loose and either put them loose in a pot and strain them into a cup, or if I’m lazy I use a tea ball. If you liked Earl Grey, their Earl Grey Supreme is really good.
I did just buy some tea forte teas for Christmas for gifts and for myself, but more for the elegent little infuser. I wouldn’t do that every day - their teas are good though
I have pounds of tea from Taipei, Ti Kaun Yin, which is apparently an oolong. My husband has staff there and whenever they visit they bring a gift. He made the “mistake” of mentioning I drink tea and liked the first gift they brought. Its good, its a very full leaf, but it isn’t a black tea.
Quoted for truth, top to bottom. My favorite Upton is my Orthodox Process TGFOP Darjeeling, but that wouldn’t be the best thing with milk. Assam or Keemun would be great. And Upton has excellent educational resources and recommendations, as well as cute little sample packets so you can discover you despise Lapsang Souchong and would just as soon brew with a charcoal briquette, without buying 250g of it. (Just for hypothetical instance.)
I like a nice Russian Caravan in the morning [the only time all my meds line up letting me squeek in something with caffeine that doesn’t hyper my BP and pulse uncomfortably]
You Red Rose haters can go suck on it. More for me!
Anyway, I had an Official British Person staying with me all last summer, and he said Red Rose was fine, so there. Hmph.