Slightly dull question about tea-making area and kitchen worktops

[lummox]

Has anyone got a good answer to keeping the tea-making bit of their kitchen nice? Our old worktop has horrible tea stains despite trying to always use a large tray. Tea seems to splash everywhere and the bit under the tray is now uncleanably horrible.

I appreciate that the answer must be some mixture of being more careful and getting a bigger tray, but has anyone found a way of dealing with this?

We use a large glass worktop saver which seems to do the trick.

only Solution I’ve found is making the tea on a folded dish cloth. A dish cloth lives there permanently - well it gets changed frequently, but there’s always one there. It works until dh uses it or just makes the tea around it

Is that a glass worktop saver with little knobbly bits underneath? Does the tea not dribble over the sides?

Am starting to wonder about the dishcloth solution. Like you I might need a husband solution to go with it!

@lummox how much tea are you spilling if it dribbles over a glass worktop saver?

I have a teabag bin and move the little bin to the cup and put the teabag straight in - no dribbles.

Can you talk us through how you make your tea, op?
I've white quartz worktops so quite careful with stains and I rarely have to clean up any drips after making tea.
Are too over filling the mugs maybe?
Not squeezing the water/ tea out of the tea bags?

Yes, it sits about 2mm above the surface. The top is textured, so it traps any dribbles, and it's larger than a tray so it's easy to avoid the edges. We wipe it clean as we go and give it a proper clean weekly in the sink.

We have always just made it on the worktop next to the kettle with a little dish to put the wet teabags in. There are no stains. Any spills or overflows are cleaned immediately so that must be the trick. We have a brown wood looking but plastic worktop so maybe that helps too.

I have an IKEA tray that I put the mug on. Plus a mug for used bags (it gets emptied lots, just not in the moment that I’m making tea). But I never really have spills, how are you doing your tea? Or, how are the other people in the house doing their tea?

Can we help you get rid of the stains? That seems like the obvious solution here.

Same as the others, I have a glass worktop saver, its not coloured or patterned, its clear so it lets the wood shine through

We have them either side of the hob as well and I have a stainless steel one that hooks over the edge of the sink as I didnt want the grooves cut into the wood where you put your washing up.

Those 4 areas are the only nice areas of our whole worktops!!

I'm now worried we make tea wrong! We drink a lot of tea and mostly make four bag pots (milk first in the cup if from the pot if that makes any difference?!).

It isn't so much of a problem with individual cups so from all the answers I'm now wondering if it is the teapot? It isn't obviously dribblesome, but somehow tea does seem to end up reaching quite a wide area!

We have a laminate worktop which doesn’t stain at all? It gets tea marks occasionally but they wipe off.

No idea. White quartz worktops here also, and I just wipe up any odd drips from tea pot. Doesn’t usually make a mess really

I use my teaspoon to put teabag into the food caddy. No mess.

Granite colour laminate worktops, but they get wiped down regularly. No tea stains.

How much tea are you splashing around? I just bleach the worktops

We have an Ikea tray with a stupid name, it's supposed to be a drainer and it's ridged metal. Bit ugly but large and light to move.

Tea does splash on it but it wipes clean.

Would love something nicer looking, or maybe just switch to drinking coffee.

I don't drink tea. I have several tea spoon holder things, tea bag holder things and h and kids use the fucking worktop. Drives me insane.

We use a mixture of tea bags in cup, and making a pot with loose tea, depending on how much time we have. It does sound like a possible teapot issue. What sort of teapot do you use?

I don't understand how you're getting all this tea onto the worktop, I make tea in the cup, carry the cup to the bin, lob the teabag in. If using a pot the pot stays on/over the tray, so any drips fall onto the tray. What are you doing!!?

I'm going to try to attach a picture of the tea area...

This is very outing to people who know me I realise!

But it captures the teapot and the stains. I have tried all manner of bleach and vinegar type cleaning solutions.

This is a very cheap IKEA worktop, which we are about the replace, which is what caused me to start the thread in the first place. We have ordered nice bamboo worktops and I am wondering how to avoid ruining them.

Ohh, you've got a Charles and Di tea caddy! I used to have one of those.

The spout on your teapot looks large relative to the overall size of the pot, could that be the issue?

My OH often drops granules of coffee in the tea making area and also coffee grounds. The granules stick like cement and are really difficult to get off

We often have dribbles. I dont know what other people are doing that they dont have any mess at all