Mundane question about tea stained pots & mugs

Baking soda / water works well. It also keeps the soap taste out.

Ian

Seconded!

/Lew

I prefer dilute, warm bleach. Fast, complete and no residue. Any alkali will work - no detergent required - but adding an oxidant dramatically enhances effectiveness.

-DM

I prefer a half-hour soak of about 1/4 tsp of Oxiclean in 1 quart of boiling water.

Myron,

I see a slew of responses to your post, so having not a clue, I continue with....

OAN, hand washing and tea drinking are not, I find, always compatable. I was drinking some subtle, delicate, complex, and might I say, costly tea with friends a month ago and made the mistake of washing my hands mid-way through the tasting with a perfumed soap. Even unperfumed soaps add their own aromatic touch. So, for those who care, what's the answer to *my* dilemma?

BTW, if you are forced to spend time on this earth, "mundane" is probably not the worst.

Michael

Myron snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com/8/04

14: snipped-for-privacy@fuse.net

I try not to wash my tea pot. Just rinse. Chinese folks I have spoken to about this believe that the mineral buildup on the teapot is good for you.

Think of it this way - it won't hurt you. Boiling water passes over the concretion often enough to sterilize it. If you notice the flavor of your tea changing because of the mineral buildup, maybe it's time to break out the toothbrush and pipe cleaner. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

Despite of what some people here are saying: DON'T DO THIS! You drink from that Teapot and mugs. Never use bleach or Oxiclean (Am I correct? This is usually used with clothes?) for cleaning. Ever saw one of these old Miss Marple Movies? The ones where people were frequently murdered with bleach? Think about it for a second: that stuff is usually highly toxic, and should NEVER be in contact with any food or drink.

For non toxic, easy to get chemicals, just go to your local supermarket and buy some baking soda, this should work fine in most cases.

Someone here mentioned oxidants. Might be a good Idea. Hydrogenperoxide (you should be able to buy that in pharmacies) of very high purity might be suitable. You should get it at pharmacies, and a solution of about

3-5% in Water should be well enough.

Hydrogenperozide is not toxic, so it should be suitable for cleaning. Anyway, it is highly corrosive, so　be careful with that stuff! Always keep

7298&version=0&displang=1 in mind, please. Rinse the pot well before using it again.

DISCLAIMER: I never tried to clean my pot with Hydrogenperoxide. I suggest using Baking Soda. If you want to give it a try, then do that on your own risk, and take any needed precautions.

bye Patrick

Ridiculous! It's been used for years by innumerable people to clean drip and espresso machines without any ill effect. Read the alt.coffee archives for more information.

Miss Marples is fiction, and besides which, a good rinse will remove any traces.

Your comment borders on hysteria. (I'm not sure from which side.) On what authority do you assert this warning? The scientific, biomedical and epidemiological didactics of Miss Marple? If you want to draw on movie deaths as authority, you might note that burnings cars rarely if ever blow up (I've watched a few and read technical literature on the subject); shooting victims are not knocked over by impact (conservation of momentum would knock the shooter over as well), strychnine cannot be added to coffee w/o anyone noticing (it's one of the bitterest known molecules, and would make anyone with taste buds gag right away - and yes, I've tasted it), and since about 1960, you can't commit suicide by sticking your head in a gas oven (because they changed from CO-rich town gas to non-toxic hydrocarbons). Drama is not always based on reality.

BTW, "that stuff" is not highly toxic; in fact, it's hardly toxic at all. It is a strong irritant and can do rapid tissue damage,e specially to the eyes and mucus membranes. The salient difference is that diluting a gram of bleach in a liter of water makes a solution that won't hurt people and doesn't even taste all that bad, compared (say) with stale Lipton bag tea. Diluting a real "highly toxic" poison like botulinum toxin or even (relatively pallid) aresnic won't make it much less toxic - with bleach, it's mainly the concentration that's an issue.

BTW #2: a little browsing will reveal that all common bleaches are used routinely in food preparation, e.g. for bleaching flour. We eat them all the time.

And BTW #3: tea reacts more or less instantly with bleach - an easy demonstration, since tea is colored and its oxidation products are not. The byproducts are harmless. So you'd have to try pretty hard to absorb much bleach after washing, rinsing and using a teapot or cup.

I've tasted bleach at about 1%, and it's not too bad. How do you think those tooth-whitening mixes work, anyway? I don't know what Oxiclean is - sounds British - but around the world, most "bleaches" are based on either calcium hypochlorite, sodium monopersulfate or similar compounds. Water is expensive to ship, but they still keep concentrations down to limit user risk, caustic damage from spills and also fire hazards. After just one or two quick rinses, none of these will leave a toxic residue - or they couldn't be sold for home use. Real industrial bleaches are rather more aggressive, but you can't buy them.

Eat a few spoonfuls of that and then decide if it's toxic. That much sodium alone would kill many people, if they weren't fortunate enough to expel it. Then there's the mega-burp menace.

What do you think most bleaches are? There are enzymic systems and some that use reduction to remove color, but almost all are oxidants.

"Pure" H2O2 - practically limited to about 90% - is an intimidatingly dangerous material even to a chemist. "Pure" dilute H2O2 is too unstable to store; evolved oxygen would shatter the bottles. Pharmacy solutions always have added stabilizers, some not so good to eat. Further, it won't clean tea stains nearly as well as an alkaline solution due to the cyclic enol oxidation - Michael addition - ionization pathway for degradation of polyphenols. As you said, you've never tried it - so why recommend it?

First clause is untrue - again, drink some if you want to find out - and in any event, very few cleaning materials are good to eat. That's why they invented the concept of rinsing.

7298&version=0&displang=1

Material safety data sheets are written for the physical protection of industry technicians and the legal protection of manufacturers. They are very strongly worded. Read the ones on salt, sugar and water sometime if you want a scare. Further, the one to which you refer is for 30% solution, a dangerous combustion enhancer that is not readily obtainable by private citizens. (But fun for Mr. Wizard shows, if you know what you're doing.)

Sharing ideas is fine. Asserting proper technique when you know nothing of the subject helps no-one. It's the same mentality responsible for the results of the recent US election. Here's a concept: learn before you teach.

-DM (who regularly cleans red-tea vessels with warm, dilute Clorox bleach)

I didn't want to prove my authority with Miss Marple, it was just to render a an example, of course.

It's ALWAYS about concentration.

I don't eat bleached Flour, only whole grain products :-) Okay, seriously. There are substances out there that are used for 'bleaching'. The summation of them all to the word 'bleach' is without respect to their chemical nature. After all, chlorine is also a good bleach. So if people reccomend 'bleach', they should damn well better say WHAT they are talking about, i.e. which compound. There are cleaning fluids out there sold as 'bleach' that contain a lot more than only a 'bleaching' compound.

Sure. Gulp down a a litre of a bleaching compund of your choice and see what happens. Every compund out there is able to kill you, you just have to take enough of it. I've heard of people getting killed by drinking to much water, as they rinsed all their salts out of their bodies. (Though that sounds urban legend'ish). Telling people to clean their pots with baking soda is far away from instructing them to 'gulp down a few spoonfulls'.

I NOW what bleaches are. Still I don't think it is a good Idea to use the 'bleaches' you can by anywhere, due to side products and additional compounds. H2O2 can be bought in Pharmacies, so you know what is in there, you just have to ASK.

What was your problem in understanding 3-5%? Get to your Labratories Chemical Storage. You might find something like H2O2, 30%, PURE FOR ANALYSIS or something. With H2O2 'pure' in most cases refers to the purity of the SOLVENT, Water in most cases. That's what I am talking about, clinical grade is very pure and does not contain to many dangerous additives, lest the compounds needed to stabilize the hydrogenperoxide.

Good question. First, I think the solution of baking powder is enough, and I said that. Why I 'recommended' it? Can't remember I did that. I pointed out that there MIGHT be a god effect by h2o2, and who wants to try, should, with all the safety precautions needed. (I would take the same safety precautions when working with a solution of baking soda or bleach...may that's the paranoia that you get when becoming a chemist

-)). I like my eyes, for example, and that's why I wear goggles. Both in the lab and when working with such compunds at home.

Thanks for pointing out Michael Addition, anyway. Organic Chemistry is not my major, still it's god to know such things ;-)

I restate that: Hydrogenperoxide is non toxic. It's corrosive, but non toxic, if you are talking in terms of the lethal dose (mg substance per kg bodyweight). Stabilizers should be toxic or irritant, that's why I suggested to rinse well.

Here's another concept: stay on the ground. I appreciate your pointing out my mistakes, still I think you did some, too. I don't think it's wise to tell people to use 'bleach', as there is no 'bleach' out there. Bleaching is a process ind which multiple compuns are used, and most of them should not be in your teapot. So when recommending that, please state which products you are talking about to avoid accidents.

ciao Patrick

Look what the FDA says about cleaning cutting boards:

From personal experience, plastic cutting boards in restaurants and groceries get the bleach treatment daily, and at a much higher concentration than the FDA suggests.

--crymad