Recommend your best tea towels.

[HiddenUser]

Yes really.
This is a thread asking for recommendations for really absorbent tea towels.
Mine are ancient (well before my husband knew me and we've been together 15 years!) and holey and ready for an update problem is the ones I have brought recently are basically rubbish non absorbing sheets of material.
Any recommendations for tea towels please?
Thank you.

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If you've landed here looking for recommendations, we've recently updated our best tea towel page with products that Mumsnetters love - including super absorbent options. We hope it's useful. MNHQ

Yes! I just posted this on the other thread about tea towel drawers.

There’s a popular tea towel company called “Third Drawer Down”.

This is because it is a known fact that the top drawer is for cutlery, the second drawer is for utensils, and the third drawer is for the tea towels.

No further discussion.

<gavel emoji> 😁

Oh no... Mine is SECOND draw?! With my utensils and crockery both in the first.

Is this why my life is so upside down and back to front half the time?!

Vintage French linen. From a brocante many years ago.

Miss Marple used to go to London to buy hers in the Army and Navy Stores, she understood the need for quality tea towels too.

Yep. Still using my grandmother’s tea towels that are well over 50 years old.

I bought super absorbent tea towels from Lakeland/Minky/Ecloth for the DC when they went to university. They work well, especially for glass, but they are ugly and made from microfibre. I wouldn’t buy them again for environmental reasons now we know how damaging they are. Not very helpful… 😂

Irish linen was always the best for me, I have some that I collected as a teenager which were horsey or had dogs on them. All mine are threadbare and over 50 years old! I refuse to part with them, some are allocated window & mirror duties, and others are just about hanging in there!

Kitchen Aid. We got ours from Costco they were similar to these

They're properly absorbent, which was something I found lacking in most others when I looked and one of the things I found very pleasing about them is that they have a built in little ribbon so you can hang them up. Which means I've turned into my grandmother and my life is over, obviously.

Totally following this! I have been trying to find decent tea towels for years! I have bought countless ones which are rubbish and just basically reposition the water molecules. Waffle, microfibre, all useless feckers which are about as absorbent as a spoon.

Another vote for Costco. They are so absorbent that they could double up for guest hand towels!

Linen tea towels have always been deemed superior to cotton. My aunt who was known for Doing Things Properly always had linen.

I wonder if 'professional' tea towels are more reliable than high street ones?

https://www.nisbets.co.uk/kitchenware-and-knives/oven-gloves-and-tea-towels/tea-towels-glass-cloths-and-oven-cloths//a33-3?cm_sp=Site%20Search--Redirect-_-tea%20towel

The glass cloths are linen.

Cotton tea towels often require several washes before they start drying. I use them as hand towels first as they are fine for that until the fibres soften.

I really like Samuel Lamont and Ulster Weavers tea towels, which you can get on Amazon.

Check out Maddison Ball creative on instagram. She's got some lovely ones at the moment.

I like the nice thick John Lewis Anyday tea towels. They mostly get used as kitchen hand towels but (fresh, clean ones) do a good job when dishes need drying off, too. They last a lot longer than any of the bathroom towels I buy.

The really really cheap Terry cloth ones that come in packs of 5 from the big supermarkets have the best absorbency.

It also helps to avoid fabric softener when you wash them.

We got blue stripey edged ones from Nisbets and they are excellent. Wash a few times to boost absorbency.

DMum always irons hers - not sure if it is this, or the fact that hers are 30+ years old, which makes them seem even better.

My Mum always ironed linen tea towels as she said it sterilised them, not sure if there was any truth in that but I still do as she'd be horrified if I didn't lol.

They must be 100% cotton, no microfiber or polyester!

35 years ago I was gifted some Terry nappies, never used them, so they became my tea towels. Bloody hell they were fantastic. Only just got rid of the last one.

Have tried using pampers but they're not the same... 😂😂

Happy with my M&S ones https://www.marksandspencer.com/set-of-4-cotton-rich-basket-weave-tea-towels/p/hbp60562278?intid=mobileappppdpshare

If you can get hold of American Flour Sack tea towels, they're the bees knees. DS brought me one back from Macy's NYC and I was so impressed I got him to get another next time he went! And we have a dishwasher!

www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1188562249/craft-basics-american-flour-sack-towel

Lamont!

Terry tea towels , Dunelm do a very acceptable version , I’ve never been able to dry anything on those silly flat ones , and microfibre towels are the work of the devil I’m sure.

I got some kitchen aid ones in tk max and am happy with them.