There’s not much Brits enjoy more than a cup of tea, so much so that not offering one to a guest in your home….CONTINUE READING...CONTINUE READING
is often seen as one of the biggest social faux-pas you can make. However, despite being one of the nation’s favourite drinks, it can come at a cost: stained mugs.
High in tannin, a brown dye, brewing a few cups of tea in the same mug can lead to unsightly brown stains that can end up being hard to shift, transforming your favourite mug into one you keep at the back of the cupboard and certainly never offer to guests. There is, however, one tried and tested solution you should reach for before donating it to a charity shop.
Baking soda and vinegar when mixed together is an absolute hero cleaning product, that can tackle everything from clogged drains to sorting out a tea-stained mug. Reported in the Express, a Facebook
page dedicated to money-saving tips – My Financial Society – advised their readers to follow these simple instructions to ensure their mugs and teacups are as good as new.
“Just get white vinegar or baking soda. It’s cheap, effective and simple. My mum likes to add one tablespoon of baking soda and white vinegar and let it sit for 10 minutes before rinsing it off with hot water. It cleans heavily stained mugs effortlessly.”
Mildly abrasive and odour reducing, baking soda gently dissolves dirt and grease, without damaging the surface you’re cleaning – it can even be used on paint
. Combined with the acidic nature of vinegar, the alkaline baking soda becomes a powerful cleaning tool, but you should normally use about half the amount of soda as vinegar when making a cleaning mixture.
There are some other things you can do to avoid staining in your teacups. Ensuring you rinse – or ideally wash – between each mug of tea you enjoy will lower staining and brewing your tea in a pot rather than the cup itself will minimise staining even further in your favourite cup, especially if you add milk to the cup first before the brewed tea. You can also tackle stains using a lemon.
Also known as tannic acid, the brown dye is naturally occurring in tea (and coffee) and is what gives the drink its colour, because they are polyphenols in the tea leaves themselves. Tannins can also stain your teeth as well as your cups. This will be more likely to happen if you take your tea black, and the best defence is keeping your mugs stain-free and maintaining good oral hygiene. From Matcha to English Breakfast, tannin is present in all teas, so adding this stain removal tip to your regular cleaning routine will be well worth it….CONTINUE READING
