Traditional tea balls are terrible tea-steeping-vessels because they don’t allow enough room for the leaf to expand.

At its most basic, tea is just a dried leaf. As when you re-hydrate any dried food, it will expand, sometimes dramatically so. Tea leaves will expand 2-5 times in size when they’ve re-hydrated after steeping. You have to allow room for that full leaf expansion, or you will not be taking full advantage of what the tea leaves has to offer.

Our suggestions:

• Steep your tea in an infusing basket or cup infuser. They work great and they can fit into individual mugs or teapots.
• Steep your tea in T-sacs (individual, do-it-yourself tea bags). They also work great and are made of unbleached teabag paper. You simply put your own tea in them, and then put them to use on-demand.
• If you must use a tea ball, use the largest honking tea ball you can find, even for a single cup.

The bottom line: use some method that allows the leaf to fully expand during the steeping time.

Steeping loose leaf tea is easy, and when done in a large enough steeping vessel, it is the best way to completely extract everything the leaves have to offer directly into your cup.