So why is it that after I finish my cup of coffee, the mug is usually only stained on the bottom, but when I have tea, the cup gets a brown stain all around?
Presumably, this has something to do with the fact that coffee is already brewed when you pour it in the mug and you just get grounds settling down in to it, but you often steep the tea in the cup and it gets dirty during that process.
Does that make sense?
If I poured tea that was already brewed out of a pot, would I get a similar stain?
I think it is more the fact that tea contains a lot of tannin, which is what stains the cup.
Coffee doesn’t, so the stain at the bottom is really just dried coffee that rests in the bottom of the cup, rather than an all-over stain.
Use a tea-pot, never make tea in the cup. It makes a lousy cup of tea (water does not stay hot enough whilst brewing) but also if you use a pot most of the brown stain stuff effects the pot and leaves you cut cleaner.
When it comes to cleaning fill the pot with a solution of sodium bicarbonate and leave it overnight.
I don’t know about this advice to never make tea in a cup. I actually prefer to brew most types of tea at lower temperatures, so I’d say it’s a matter of personal preference. I do slosh some hot water in my cup to heat it before brewing, the same way you “season” a tea pot.
And of course, for green and white tea, you start with cooler water (160-180[sup]o[/sup]F) and only brew for 1-3 minutes, so brewing in a cup should be fine.
Vinegar cuts through tea stains pretty easily, too, BTW.
You can also get tea stains out of a tea cup with ginger ale, or herbal tea that contains mallow root (i.e., marshmallow).
I’ve used toothpaste to clean coffee stains, but I wouldn’t try this on good china.