Tannin stains and rubber gloves

Just a quickie today. I mentioned last week that I got Nigella's Kitchen for Christmas. And as well as cooking from it, I enjoy reading it - I love Nigella's prose style, and her desperate attempts to convince us that she never puts in any effort.

At the beginning of the book, there was a section of the old-style tips and tricks that are now fashionble again - bicarb and vinegar soaks, that sort of thing. One was soaking stained mugs with vinegar and warm water to remove tannin stains. I tried it. It worked... ish, if you gave it a good scrub afterwards.

So I thought I'd share a technique my mother taught me, that her mother taught her, that actually work, and that I haven't read anywhere.

Excuse the different light levels in these pictures. If you haven't realised by now, our kitchen has no natural light. I took the mug into a different room for the before and after pix, but the actual cleaning happened in the kitchen.

Before. Yuck.

It's incredibly simple, quick and satisfying. Rinse the mug and don't dry it so there's still a bit of water in there, put on rubber gloves and pour a teaspoon or so of salt onto your fingers.

(You do need the rubber gloves by the way. You're using the salt as an abrasive, to scrape off the stains, and you don't want to do that to your skin).

Salt, rubber gloves, dirty mug.

Then just use the salt to scrub at the stains for a few seconds. They'll disappear and the mug will come up clean, and you can then wash the mug up as usual to make sure that your next cuppa doesn't taste of salt.

Ta-da!

Then put the kettle on and make a cup of tea. Just to make sure it's worked.