Loose tea has better flavor than tea bags and is easy to brew. Use a glass or ceramic teapot, warm it up, and throw away the infuser.
Tea is a drink made by brewing the leaves of a tea plant (Camellia Sinensis). Tea leaves have more caffeine then coffee beans: 22-28mg/g of dry matter, or 2-3% by weight, while coffee has 1.2-1.6%. A cup of tea, however, contains 30-80mg of caffeine, twice less than a cup of coffee.
America is still largely a coffee-drinking country. American tea tradition regretfully started with the Boston tea party, and didn't improve since then. This only can explain the wide spread of CTC and tea bags.
CTC stands for cut, tear and curl: the low-grade tea leaves are intentionally cut in small pieces and dried. CTC brews immediately, producing dark brown liquid with no flavor and dusty bitter taste, but caffeine is still there. Tea bags are made with the fanning, or dust and pieces of leaves, and have very little flavor and taste. The bags themselves are made of paper. Try brewing a Kleenex.
Better yet, try brewing a real, whole-leaf tea. Tea leaves need space to unfold and expand. Loose tea is brewed best in an inert (glazed ceramic or glass) teapot. Some teapots have glass, plastic or wire mesh infusers which keep tea leaves from the cup but don't let leaves unfold. Remove the infuser, put leaves in the pot and use a tea strainer to catch the stray leaves if you cannot stand them in your cup. Use 1 to 2 heaping teaspoons of tea (depending on the sort of tea and personal preferences) per cup. Bring water to the rapid boil, pour it in the teapot and let it steep for several minutes. Drink immediately.
Whole leaves preserve flavor better than broken, and release it when tea is brewed.
Green tea is not fermented: leaves are harvested, withered, rolled and dried. White tea, oolong and black correspond to different degrees of fermentation. Green tea brews greenish-yellow, smells fresh and grassy and taste fresh and little bit bitter, very refreshing. Sometimes it is flavored with jasmine. White tea and oolong brew with different shade of brownish-yellow, and, like green tea, can be steeped repeatedly 2-3 times. Oolong tastes little bit more earthy. Black tea is the most fermented and best known in the West. The black tea is different shades of reddish-brown, it's flavor and taste varies greatly. The most popular sorts of black tea are Darjeeling, Ceylon, Assam (Indian) and Keemun (Chinese black). Assam is heavy and dark, it goes well with milk and sugar. English Breakfast blend is mostly Assam. Keemun is hard to describe, it has earthy, mushroomy taste and flavor reminding of wet autumn woods. Ceylon tea is the most prototypical black tea; it looks tea, smells tea and tastes tea. It is good on its own, but milk, or sugar, or lemon will not destroy it. To add something to Darjeeling is a crime.
Single-estate teas are top of the tea hierarchy. They are carefully harvested and carefully processed to bring out the best of the taste and flavor. Tea is marked with the name of the plantation and leaf size (and whole or broken leaf). Harvesting season is important, too: leaves are harvested twice a year, making more flavorful first flush and stronger second.
See also: kitchen, turkish coffee, coffee grinder, teapot.