Or just get a plant - they're pretty hardy things! Get a little baby bay tree for your balcony or doorstep! Just make sure you bring them in over winter if it gets below freezing regularly or it'll go into hibernation
It's easier to just make bayleaf tea and taste it. This also works to show the contrast between fresh bay leaves and dried, and decent dried bay leaves and super old stuff that's been sitting at the back of your spice cupboard for 10 years.
Pretty much everything you cook should have salt added or it will taste bland. Salt brings out other flavors. There's a reason "under seasoned" is an expression that often simply means "under salted."
Bay leaf is a subtle flavor that makes soups and stew taste "fuller", if that makes any sense. If you feel like the soup/stew you made taste like it's missing something, add some bay leaf and try again.
Remove? Are you the princess of china or what?
It was a tradition in my home, whoever got the bay leaf got a letter from a far away relative and could read out an inventive message.
It does worse than fuck all. It actively sabotages the end product by being a desiccated hunk of tree bark in the finished product if it isn't removed.