I have noticed that some tea tastes bitter the second time around with the bag. I was wondering if anyone had a technique for evenly dividing a bag into two cups of tea–perhaps a quick dunk in super-hot water for the first cup?
Or is tea and other herbs so ephemeral that it is only good once?
This is more of an IMHO than a GQ, so I’ll move this thread.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Some people use small teapots and put the bag in there for multiple cups. I suppose I’m wasteful because I use 1 bag per cup. As far as taste goes, that’s personal. I like strong tea and coffee, but others like theirs weak.
tea? what tea? 
yeah, i reuse tea bags. i only drink fruit tea, though. hate ordinary tea. dunno why. fruit tea tasts so weak the second time tho. 
My beloved SO drinks mainly a herbal tea called “Rooibos” from South Africa, and she uses each teabag twice (mainly because we live in London and it is hard to find and quite expensive).
Ahe also drinks ordinary (Ceylon) tea, and (in agreement with the OP) finds the second use of the bag to be too bitter.
Me, I am a coffee drinker and have the stained teeth to prove it
My Mother In Law always reuses teabags. She likes really weak tea, so she’d rather have a pre-used teabag. I like strong tea, and would rather make a pot of tea than use a teabag in the first place, but if using a teabag it has to be new, not second hand. The MIL keeps all her old tea bags on a plate next to the kettle, and will sometimes dunk two teabags into mine to keep me happy. It doesn’t work - it’s still too weak and tastes funny to me, but I guess if I had it like that all the time I’d get used to it. So there’s an answer - use two old teabags instead of one.
Also, she doesn’t “wring” the teabag. She dunks quickly and sticks it on the plate. Using that teabag a second time would be different to using one that’s been left to defuse for a while and then wrung out.