No, of course we don’t microwave the mug WITH the teabag in it. We microwave the teabag separately.
… wait, there are some americans who put the tea BAG in the microwave with the water?!?
I’ve MADE tea using a microwave before and it was ALWAYS “heating the water in the microwave, then adding the teabag to the hot water”, it never even crossed my MIND to have the tea bag inside the microwave, and frankly that sounds AWFUL.
I often do this. With loose leaf tea too. The quality of the result highly depends on the tea and whether you get the timing right. I know my microwave pretty well and can hit boiling or just before boiling by changing the time for a black vs a green tea.
When boiled appropriately, I can’t really tell the difference for most bagged teas, so maybe I’m just tea uncultured?
The earl grey loose leaf I have I actually like better when it’s kept boiling for longer (about 15 seconds of boiling), and the microwave allows me to easily do this.
The loose green tea I have changes its flavor a lot when heated for different amounts and to different temperatures. The microwave also let’s me easily control this in a way that I would struggle to with a kettle. I suppose I could add the tea afterwards and just get the water a bit hotter to compensate, but I’m lazy and I always forget about my tea in the microwave so it’s easier if it already has the leaves in it so I don’t have to re-steep
Maybe, who knows? Reheating tea though is absolutely foul. Worse than reheating coffee, somehow, and reheating coffee is pretty bad.
Why would you reheat tea in the first place? Just pour more boiling water in it.