As someone who didn't grow up in a tea culture (actually I grew up in the kind of coffee culture where people drank instant coffee, so I even had to learn about doing coffee well later in life), I found this article of interest.

http://www.slate.com/id/2279601/

Much of that stuff I already knew, but I haven't really thought about the vital importance of using actively BOILING water over tea before. I have considered tea bags very inferior to loose tea for quite awhile though. However, I recently started using a tea ball instead of just putting the loose leaves in the teapot because I was having issues with clogging my kitchen drain getting rid of the leaves later. The milk in first vs. later (correct way) is funny to me as I don't use milk in tea (or coffee for that matter).

Most important :

Keep your Tea Bags or Tea Leaves in a Sealed plastic box before use because of the high Humidity here in Thailand.