Can anyone recommend some teas for a novice tea enthusiast?

Go to Republic of Tea

A couple of favorites are:
Mango Ceylon and
Passion fruit Mango Red Tea

Buy full leaf teas, not tea bags. Enjoy

I’m not sure if Adagio ships to Canada, but they have some great varietals. (Their IngenuiTEA is probably the best invention ever when it comes to loose tea, too.)

Amazon.com sells some great teas: Twinings, PG Tips, Taylors of Harrogate (especially Yorkshire Gold)...of course, the best teas come from/are marketed in England. :)

SBSteas.com sells some delicious loose leaf varieties. I’m not sure if they ship to Canada, but seeing as how the two ladies who run it have excellent customer service and get back to you pronto, it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

Also, I don’t think Stash gets enough love. (shopstashtea.com) I don’t know if stores in your area stock it (they do in the States). If you’re not ready to make the jump to loose leaf yet, I think Stash (and PG Tips’ pyramid bags) have the tastiest and most reasonable bagged teas out there.

If you’re looking for specific varietals, basics would include:
-Earl Grey
-English (or Irish) Breakfast
-Green Tea (especially Jasmine tea)
-Chai (there are a great many chai varieties; try a lot!)
-Darjeeling
-Lapsang Souchong

There are also white teas, red teas, herbal teas (tisanes), and probably a few I can’t think of!

Let us know how it goes!

I don’t know if they’re sold in Canada, but Traditional Medicinals is good place to start – they’re local here in California and widely sold. They have wonderful flavorful herbal teas that are natural. I especially recommend Throat Coat if you like licorice.

Otherwise, I would just generally recommend trying different herbal teas to see if you like them (I don’t know if you’ve been trying herbal, black, green, or what), either making them at home or buying in the store: mint, chamomile, ginger (easy to make with fresh chopped ginger), licorice, anise, cinnamon, rosemary (a spring of fresh rosemary in a cup), hibiscus, jasmine, citrus peels, thyme, etc. Other flowers and herbs are probably available where you live – maybe elderflower, since it grows in colder climates?

If you have access to foreign teas, there is a great Japanese roasted barley tea that’s wonderful if you like something nuttier, less sweet – somewhat like coffee. It’s also good cold in the summer. Chinese chrysanthemum, or sugar cane teas. If you really want bitter, try yerba maté – also good with a couple spoonfuls of sugar (how we always had it in Argentina). Of course Japanese jasmine green teas.

For black tea, Good Earth original tea is a power-packed tasty one – and they also have a caffeine-free version.

If you add sweetener, honey is great if you add it once it’s cooled a bit (better health-wise).

@zina, yay! Another mugicha fan. :)

You must try Apricot Green Tea from Adagio

If you’ve never tried a really high quality chai or oolong, you should! Edit: And if Tim were here, he would say you should try Sencha (that’s a type of Japanese green tea).

Also, it’s a good idea to invest in a thermometer because some teas (especially green and oolong) should be steeped at certain temperatures and putting the tea into boiling water will just scorch it and ruin the flavor.

Mighty Leaf Earl Grey. It’s just very excellent Earl Grey.

A lot of teas are blends. Earl Grey, for instance, is a blend of black teas—exactly which ones depends on the company you’re buying it from—flavored with oil of bergamot. Irish Breakfast, English Breakfast, Scottish Breakfast, they’re all blends.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it suggests a specific direction to go in: unblended varietals. This is where you look at Ceylon, Assam, Darjeeling, Keemun, Lapsang Souchong, and then you look at tea grown on specific estates or at specific times of year—a first flush Darjeeling from the Okayti estate, for instance.

(You don’t need to get that anal-retentive: if you can distinguish between Ceylon, Assam, and Darjeeling, you’re doing better than the vast majority of people.)

And every tea I’ve mentioned in this answer is a black tea. Basically, depending on how long the leaves are allowed to oxidize after being picked, the tea can be a green tea, a white tea, an oolong tea, or a black tea.

My own tea cupboard always contains at least 2 black varietals—lately Ceylon and Darjeeling—some black tea blends, some of them flavored with fruit, and jasmine tea—which is the only green tea I really like. (It’s a blend of green teas with jasmine flowers in it.) I’ve developed a fondness for Scottish Breakfast lately, because it’s heavy on the Ceylon and light on the Assam, and I like that because it’s lighter than English and Irish Breakfast.

@cwilbur: I think the distinguishing characteristic of white tea is that it’s made from buds and young tea leaves, instead of mature leaves, as opposed to the treatment after harvesting.
(And I have a penchant for Jasmine Tea too!)

Try the Aveda Comfort Tea for a plain ol’ delicious tea. I don’t think it’s tea-snob approved, but it is absolutely wonderful.

p.s. also (just in case you forget), be sure to check out the ‘siblings’ :)

Echinacea tea is good. I have been drinking alot of teas that have some what of a natural medicine effect. St. Johns Wort teas is good for a mood pick me up. Green Tea. White Tea. Try getting a book on herbs and growing your own tea ingredients. Honey, Lemon and Agave Nectar are excellent things to add to tea. Use distilled water so that the tea doesn’t acquire any weird tastes from a city water supply or a well.

I love gunpowder.

@mattbrowne At first, I thought it was either a joke, or a Chinese Engrish thing going on with gunpowder tea. I was afraid to taste it. What does it remind you of?

@Zen – thick, strong smoke-like flavor – it’s green tea alright

Earl Grey works for me. My avatar likes it, too.