American restaraunts do fail to make good tea.
Water is never hot enough.
If you do find good tea it is generally thought of as a fine wine
-something exotic and is presided over by an artsy elf like person....often also the tea is adulterated with every !##@$#spice known to man. It is like drinking essence of craft store aroma...yuck!

My wife...a tea drinker has been totally turned off of tea and on to coffee.

Now....about milk with tea.
What you put into tea should be determined by the way the tea was prepared, selected, dried and blended. With Irish tea- ceylon and assam mixture- this is designed to provide the best flavour when cream or milk is added.

So to take advantage of all the work in preparation....selecting the leaves, picking them blending them preparing them....try to find out what the intended for taste calls for.

I still like teas without cream or milk but some taste equally well if not better with it.

Again....
the answers to these and many other questions are contained in our Teatime Cookbook. A bargain! And a way to in a small way (profits are really minimal....I did the book for my students....) help us in our free services...web pages, research, endless questions answered on behalf of thousands of students via e.mail each year.
The tea book click here

Conrad