A 'Magic' Sponge for Clean Teaware

A 'magic' sponge and a white bowl before cleaning

Cleanliness is the first, necessary step for beauty and harmony to happen. It is also a sign of respect and welcome for your guests. If the tea cup isn't well cleaned, how can we feel at ease tasting a tea?

Because tea has very light and natural flavors, we don't like to use chemical detergents to clean our teaware. (Robert Parker, the wine critic, observed that, too often, wines are spoiled by glasses that haven't been well rinsed with fresh water).

Sometimes, it can be enough to regularly wash our cups with water and our bare hands. But, some tea stains can be too tough to remove this way. That's when I use my 'magic' sponge. First, I rip (or cut) a small piece from the sponge. I wet this piece with only cold water. And then I use this wet piece to wipe the tea stains away. The sponge's micropores are finely abrasive and work best on glazed surfaces.

After cleaning

The stains were not very obvious on the pictures of this bowl. That's why I found another piece of porcelain in need of a good clean:

Before

After a few moments, it looks like new again! Regular sponges don't clean so quickly and easily.

After

The small piece of sponge disintegrates as it absorbs dirty and is rubbed against uneven surfaces. It also cleans stainless steel, wood... But you still have to rinse your teaware after it's been cleaned with this sponge, because such sponges may contain some chemicals.   

Since today is Thanksgiving, I would like to say thank you to all of you who are reading, commenting and supporting my tea blog with your orders. I'm still amazed how tea lovers from the whole world share my tea passion. Many have become good friends This year, they included people from the USA, Canada, the UK, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Greece, Estonia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, Israel, Argentina, Thailand, Japan, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia...