Pour slowly enough that you don't rupture the bag.

Are your friends firing the water into the cup with a pressure washer?

Don't use boiling water. 195-205F for black tea. Brew time typically varies by preference from 3-4 minutes, but 5 isn't terrible.

My last couple of electric kettles had various levels for coffee, black tea, herbal tea and then the roaring boil of the 212 of your freedom units. I suspect the roaring is due to all of the freedom.

I'm surprised the coffee setting is so low compared to the teas.

I've never really paid attention to how longto leave a tea bag in. Usually it's stayed in the whole time while drinking it. Recently I've started to read the boxes the tea comes in and Earl Grey is like 3 minutes depending on the brand and herbal is 5-10.

As for number 5 I've read back when China was becoming more common place it was almost a caste level nod if you put your milk in first or last.

Early cheaper China would crack or break from hot water/tea being poured directly into the cup first. Placing the milk in first helped cover up this flaw by cooling down the tea.

Pouring your hot tea directly into your cups without the milk first was a subtle flex of your superior China quality. I do miss some of this nuance in a world that's seems to be on full blast most of the time.

I don't give a shit about patinas and just use a French press I got from Ikea. But I do have a programmable kettle set to 70 or 80 °C, virtually only use loose leaf green and oolong teas, and steep two minutes for the first steeping and 90 seconds for each subsequent one. (For black tea I just crank the temperature to boiling and keep everything else the same.)

That probably makes me snobbish enough to confuse people who don't drink tea but amateurish enough to annoy the snobs.

In the end any approach is fine as long as you like the result.

Yorkshire Gold FTW