I've never been a big tea drinker, but for some reason find myself drinking a lot recently. Can anyone recommend a strong, dark tea?
To brew or to buy?
I don't recommend buying premade tea. There is a horrible shortage of potable tea in stores. I've discovered that this is a nation-wide phenomenon. 7-11's and Circle K's across the fruited plain simply lack the capacity to provide decent iced tea to the populace. You may sometimes get lucky and they'll have an ice-tea pot next to the fountain sodas, but as often as not, that tea is skunked. (Allowed to get warm and recooled ... tastes god-awful).
Your best bet is to buy teabags yourself and brew it at home. I get Lipton in the family size bags. You can control the strength yourself (I use 3 familysize bags for a nice robust flavor), and it's ALWAYS better than the crap they sell bottled in a store, which is invariably skunky or so sweetened and flavored as to be unrecognizable as tea.
Also if you like raspberry (or peach or any of that) flavoring in your tea, you can toss one small bag of flavored tea in with your normal teabags. This will give you a nice subtle hint of the flavoring, rather than the obnoxious overpowering crap you get in stores, which may as well be packaged and sold as "Raspberry Joose".