My friend is the host of the New York Tea Society meetup in NYC and I thought I'd post the group here. The group is open to the public so we get all kinds of different people with different levels of knowledge about tea. We're very friendly & I go to most of the meetups.
https://www.meetup.com/newyorkteasociety/
New York Tea Society
Looks to be an interesting meet up. Different steeping parameters among members, and preferences towards lighter or darker brews, are a topic of conversation at all our get togethers. There are those of us that fall in the rich full body steep camp, and others in the lighter more subdued camp .
Very cool Shine. If you guys ever need some tea for one of the 'battles', we'd be happy to help out at a discount.