Bill D - and Joe

Made properly in a sutiable tea pot, you should never find leaves in the cup. I've used the procedure recommended by a "vaguely oriental" friend decades ago.

You start by pouring boiling water into a china/ceramic pot (at least half fill the pot). Let it sit until the outside is thoroughly warm.

Pour out the first water, and immediately add the loose tea leaves and fill with fresh boiling water.

The leaves will sink to the bottom of the pot by the time a proper infusion results, so that if you pour gently into the cup the only one who might find a leaf in the cup obviously drank the last cup and must make the next pot.

If making in the cup (even if using an infuser?) it also seems to me that a better flavor is obtained if the cup is pre-heated before adding the fresh water and the tea. Properly infused loose tea should lie quietly at the bottom of the cup and won't get in your teeth if you "have another cup" instead of gulping the "bottoms."

On the subject of "the other beverage," recent tests have reported that "filtered coffee" is better for you than the fancy stuff, because the filter paper preferentially absorbs most of the small amount of some known carcinogens from the brew, while the "steam" brewed stuff contains all of them. (Almost everything you ingest contains some "known carcinogens" but there are few reports of the extent of any ill effects from any of them - including those from coffee.)

John