for me it was kind of a fun thought experiment.
imagine that your tea hut burnt down
. you lost everything except for your trusty kettle. you wish to continue drinking tea, and you have $450 to get you through a year. what would you get?it's ok if you go over a little. don't spend too much time thinking about it. try not to plan into the following year either.
the idea is to have some fun and maybe give newbs an idea of what you think the essentials really are.
here's my answer:
for $25:
i'd get a cheap ~100mL porcelain gaiwan and cup (maybe 90-130mL). i drink tea alone 99% of the time.
for $150:
then i'd get a japanese kyusu of some sort about 140mL. i like japanese teas, and somehow they seem to demand japanese teaware. but i wouldn't hesitate to use it for other teas too. i think it adds a nice aesthetic to the drinking experience as well.
i'd probably get one from hojo. maybe a piece by maekawa junzo (you can read about him here and here). probably shigaraki or iga clay.
https://hojotea.com/item_e/available.htm
perhaps a side-handle kyusu like this:
or even a hohin (a personal favorite):
and that leaves me with a $275 tea shopping spree.
$50: i'd get like 200g sencha from https://www.o-cha.com/
then some taiwanese oolongs:
$20 60g https://tillermantea.net/product/cuifen ... nter-2018/
$30 60g https://tillermantea.net/product/lishan ... nter-2018/
$30 120g https://tillermantea.net/product/dong-d ... nter-2018/
$24 60g https://tillermantea.net/product/bai-hao-summer-2017/
$23 60g https://tillermantea.net/product/muzha- ... nter-2018/
~$150, 350g:
finally, i'd spend the rest on a cake of puerh. maybe one of these two:
https://teaswelike.com/product/2003-hon ... tion-7542/
https://teaswelike.com/product/2013-xia ... e-forever/
ok, so i overshot the budget by about $50.
but that's about 910g of tea which gives about 180 5g sessions. i could have a session every other day. i could live with that.
also, please don't read too much into which vendors i came up with. this is just one of many possible examples.
other possibilities could involve yancha, way more puerh, and maybe doing without the kyusu.
)
). I'd say to get a bunch of biggish samples (25-50g) of various types of teas form various localities from 2 or 3 vendors: 
so confucius say...