How to brew whole-leaf tea without overthinking it
Tea people love rules. Water at exactly 87°C, vessels warmed twice, timers set to the second. All of it is real, and almost none of it matters until you've got the two big things right. Start here.
Use enough leaf. This is the mistake in nine kitchens out of ten. Whole leaves look bulky in the spoon but they're mostly air, so a teaspoon of big twisted leaves weighs about half of what a teaspoon of teabag dust does. Use a properly heaped spoon per cup, more than feels reasonable. Weak tea brewed longer doesn't become strong tea. It becomes bitter water.
Don't boil the delicate ones. Black teas like our Assam and the second flush are happy with water just off the boil. Green teas like the jasmine pearls want it noticeably cooler, around 80°C. No thermometer is needed: boil the kettle, then leave the lid open for two minutes. Scalded green tea tastes like spinach, and nobody wants that.
Everything else is preference dressed up as doctrine. Steep the Assam three minutes and taste it, then adjust half a minute either way next time until it's yours. Milk in Assam is traditional and correct. Milk in Darjeeling is a small crime you're allowed to commit in your own home.
One habit worth stealing is the re-steep. Whole leaves have a second and third cup in them if you add thirty seconds each round. If your leaves give up after one brew, they weren't whole leaves.
That's the entire method. Enough leaf, the right heat, then taste and adjust. The ritual can get as elaborate as you like once the cup is worth ritualising.