Hi guys, I make my own Dishwasher detergent and can tell you the missing ingredient for getting Tea and Coffee stains off cups and dishes is a 1/3 of a scoop of oxy clean for whites. It has bleaching agents in it and removes all stains great and there’s no suds or after smells either. Do try it and let me know what you think. Don’t pre treat the cups just put them in and you’ll be amazed. I’ve got to sat though that I use the oxy clean with my homemade dishwasher powder. Best of luck, and let me know how you get on.
Read the label on your dishwasher detergent package. Ones without chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite) don’t do well with tea stains. Detergents with NaClO do better.
I’m with the OP. I make sure to give my mugs a quick sponge before I put them in the dishwasher to break off the tea stains which is usually in the form of a ring.
Another thought is to use better mugs. I drink coffee and my wife likes tea. I use any old cheapo mug and she uses some fairly expensive china ones that were a present. They come up clean in the dishwasher but if she has tea in one of my cheapo mugs - that stays brown. She does like fairly strong tea.
This is why I stopped drinking tea regularly. I used to drink both coffee and tea, and my teeth were yellowing a bit. I noticed that tea stains a mug much worse than coffee, so I looked it up and the Internet does say that tea stains teeth worse than coffee. Now I mostly just drink coffee and a bit of herbal teas, chamomile and rooibos.
Don’t most ‘complete’ dishwasher detergents have silicon beads (sand, actually) in them? These beads being shot at high pressure help to clean the gunk off the dirtiest dishes.
Bob
I’ve found that table salt, a little bit of water, and a lot of scrubbing does a good job getting tea stains out of ceramic mugs.
NaCl… NaClO… I assumed that the stains came out because the salt is mildly abrasive, but is there some chemical reaction going on, too?
I can’t find anything with a quick google other than tannins having poor solubility, but I remember something about insoluble compounds precipitating out of tea - hence difficult to remove stains.
I find that a good hand scrub with even a plastic scour pad gets rid of tea stains quickly. I have black mugs so I guess I haven’t noticed if my one year old dishwasher removes the stains or not.
For stubborn stains, you can also try a cleaner that contains oxalic acid, like https://www.barkeepersfriend.com/how-to-use/in-the-kitchen/ – NAYY, YMMV
It works well on scorched food stains in cookware and also removes spoon/knife marks from plates, mugs, etc. Pretty gentle abrasive so it shouldn’t damage the surface.