Using Tea Bags

It is a bad idea to prepare tea using a microwave, period. The microwave de-oxygenates the water and produces a noticeably inferior brew. It's faster to use an electric kettle and your tea will also taste better. Tea bags should only be used once.

microwaved water i feel taste not as good in tea.

tea bags i use as long as there's good flavor coming out which is not often for fine chopped tea-most of the flavor goes out in the first infusion

if you have 'loose leaf' teabags those might last longer...

The only real difference is the amount of time the teabag is sitting in the water, and/or if the metal staple will create havok with your microwave. If you have to use a microwave just do the water the least amount of time to get to temp, and then add the teabag.

It's a rare teabag that stands up to multiple brewings. Some of the newer pyramid shaped bags which contain real tea leaves can. Occasionally I'll reuse a regular orange pekoe teabag once because the second brewing is sometimes better than the first... better being relative.

HTH, Dominic

This is kind of academic to me, as I use neither microwave nor bag, but I'm curious. How would a microwave remove the oxygen from water?

/Lew

Much in the same way that reboiling the same water repeatedly on the stove de-oxygenates it.

Yes, very bad. It is a recipe for bitterness.

For the most part, the cheap tea used in bags will not stand multiple steeps. You'll notice that the second time around it loses whatever nose it had on the first steep, and so the bitterness is more evident.

--scott

Extended boiling removes dissolved oxygen from the water. Bringing water to a boil very rapidly is also more apt to remove dissolved oxygen because of the vigor of the bubbling, and that's usually what happens in the microwave.

I don't think it's a critical issue, but I can tell the difference between water boiled on the gas stove and in the microwave. I wouldn't say it's a critical difference... certainly MUCH less than the difference between Lipton's and good tea.

--scott

I disagree. I do think it's critical. Good quality water heated to the proper temperature (boiling for black tea) is the most important factor. I would much rather have a cup of Lipton tea prepared properly (and I am no Lipton fan) than the most expensive tea in the world made from water boiled in the microwave.

I'm always amazed at how some people seem insistent on building a better mousetrap when it comes to preparing tea. I don't understand the need to make it in the microwave or the coffee maker or pod machine, when all that is really needed is a kettle and some fresh cold water. Keep it simple and don't fix what ain't broke.

Since Nigel hasn't chimed in, allow me to point out that the tea in bags isn't necessarily cheaper than the same brand of loose/bulk tea. It's a more finely broken leaf, as required for rapid brewing with limited circulation. It may also contain desirable flakes of dried tea juice - "instant tea" - which are more brittle than leaf and will tend to join the fines in the sifting process.

I personally believe that the microwave argument is bogus for a variety of reasons; likewise the inference that differences in brewed taste from different water-heating methods are anything but psychological. If they have any chemical basis at all, it's probably reduction in CO2 and associated drop in flavor-affecting multivalent cations. I would be delighted to see scientific evidence that dissolved oxygen affects tea taste significantly. Beyond that, heating water to boiling in a kettle is like to degas it much more effectively than a microwave, since the kettle superheats the water locally - a good way to ensure efficient removal of dissolved gases. If you microwave a mugful just to boiling, it will probably contain more oxygen than equilibrium allows at that temperature, and much more than if it had been "boiled up."

Note also that when a mug of water is microwaved, heat transfer to the mug will usually be rapid enough to heat of the container almost as much as the water. When kettle-boiled water is added to a room-temperature mug, the overall temperature will immediately drop several degrees. Since the taste of many teas is a sensitive function of brewing temperature (with black/red teas especially sensitive to off-boil brewing), microwave-bashers who don't preheat their brewing vessels may be fooling themselves about what they're making.

Metal in a microwave is rarely a problem if submerged. Even a spoon in a mug is often fine, depending on exactly geometry. I used to use a long-handled metal tea ball in an office microwave, and had no problems with arcing.

Finally, note that unlike kettles, microwave ovens are rarely dedicated to heating water. Cross-contamination with food odors is probably common.

-DM

I don't understand how a kettle can superheat water since it turns to steam when boiled and evaporates unlike a microwave which can heat water above 212 degrees F with no loss of liquid or even boiling as we see it on the stove.

From a safety standpoint, no, it's a good idea because doing so keeps the water from exploding.

For flavor, it's your tastebuds - do what you want.

With some green teabags, I've used them twice. For black tea, once, only.

Again, they're your tastebuds. Experiment and do whatever you like the best. I know someone who microwaves a new teabag for the first mug, microwaves another new teabag for the second mug, then microwaves the two used teabags together for the third mug and says good flavor is in all three mugs of tea.

I agree.

I'm guessing that you've never made tea from water boiled in a microwave. It's not a subtle difference and it's not psychological. The resulting brew is undrinkable. I don't need scientific evidence to tell me when something tastes bad. And the reasons why microwaved water makes poor tea isn't all that important. It just does.

Huh??

Bad guess - please read the rest of the post. In any event, I'm not arguing that there's no difference, only that the imputation of same to heating methods is generally vague pseudo-science. I'm a firm pragmatist when it comes to cuisine, and believe "de gustibus non est disputandum." It's only when people insist on invoking the authority of science without bothering to do a little homework that I would affirm that "ars sine scientia nihil est."

The reasons could be important if one has reason to use a microwave - e.g., no alternative, as in many office situations - and can easily make better tea by taking better care. That's why I mentioned food odors, commonly present in microwave oven as they are fiddly to clean well. The step-drop in temperature I mentioned is simple to demonstrate. One might surmise that you don't like microwaved tea because the brew temperature is hotter than suits you. It's easy enough to check.

Some of us here may appear as rigid fundamentalists, didactic, intolerant or otherwise inhibiting of tea art. A closer listening might reveal that we're trying to prevent the propagation of silly, untested or (in many cases) demonstrably erroneous "received wisdom" that actually gets in the way of beginners' experimentation to find their own best preferences.

Have a cup of tea, and speak to personal experience.

-DM

Same reason that water can be supercooled by tens of degrees when very clean: boiling and freezing are both nucleation phenomena. That's why microwaved water can geyser when agitated, and why some chefs use boiling stones in a large kettle. The superheating isn't much, but enough to have a large effect on expulsion of dissolved gases. There's also a significant effect (absent in pre-boil microwaving) due to "sweeping" of the bulk liquid by rising bubbles, a standard industrial technique for removing gas from water, organics and even molten glass. I speak as one who has had to degas all sorts of liquids with methods ranging from simple boiling and helium sparging to freeze-pump-thaw to ultrasound and other mechanical approaches.

-DM

Good point about the food odors -- the main reason I avoid using the microwave in the office for any reason. But even a microwave that hasn't been contaminated with other foods does not make a great cup of tea. I've never gotten any tea from the microwave that wasn't undrinkably harsh. The microwave is the only thing available in my office, so I've brought in my own electric kettle so I can get a decent cup of tea a few times a day.

As for the temperature drop -- another good point. I think that is the main reason why brewing tea in a teapot makes better tea than brewing it directly in the mug. I only brew in the mug at work due to the lack of facilities, but always preheat the mug and cover it while the tea is brewing. This helps maintain the heat longer and makes a huge difference in the taste of the tea.

I'm also a "milk in first" person because adding milk last tends to scald it and just doesn't taste the same. Obviously when brewing in the mug, "milk in first" is not an option, so when I'm at work, I always wait a minute or two after brewing my tea to let it cool slightly before I add any milk.

Not inconsistent with the overheating proposition, ne?

-DM

With a microwave, if conditions are right, it's possible to heat water above the boiling point with no water movement as we'd see on a stove. Having a microwave-safe object in the vessel, like a plastic or wood stirrer or instant coffee or sugar or (ick) teabag, keeps the water from exploding.

It's a dangerous possibility and it happened to me in 2003 when I was microwaving 24 oz of water in a 32 oz Pyrex glass measuring cup (wide opening) on a turntable (moving, not still). Maybe the water remained too stable despite the movement of the turntable, a manual wind-up model that I had used without incident many times before under similar conditions to "boil" water for tea. Anyway, the water went from stillness straight to BLAM! and nearly all the water was blown out of the cup.

Thank God(!) it exploded in the microwave before I opened the door or I could have been severely burned. It surely did stun the heck out of me and I switched immediately to using a kettle on the stove.

I did some research and learned that water typically explodes *after* being removed from the microwave. For more info:

For an MPG or Quicktime movie, and more info, please see:

From that evening until February 2005 when a friend saw a TV program that said that inserting a microwave-safe object like a wooden stick or plastic stirrer would make it okay, I heated water solely in my kettle. Even now, I use the microwave to heat water only for green or white teas which need water below the boiling point. I always have a wooden stick in the cup and zap it for no more than 2 minutes.

May a word to the wise be sufficient. Two online acquaintances said it's happened to them, too. My real life friends said, "Didn't you know?"

Sorry, I meant real world as compared to cyberspace. We're all really alive, aren't we?