[OT] coca-cola and rust

Coming into this thread late ...

If you are regularly using the tea strainer for straining tea then
what you might be seeing is tannin - the stuff that makes tea look
brown. If that is the case then I'm not suprised that coke didn't
remove it - you need something midly basic (coke is acidic) to remove
tannin. I've had a lot of luck using bicarbonate of soda to remove
tanning from stained tea pots and strainers. Bicarb is one of those
things that can act either as a base or an acid - cool stuff!

Cheers,
Tish

On 24 Mar 2006 22:17:28 GMT, wrote:

A little while ago, a few folks were posting "helpful hints" lists
for ways to deal with common problems using household items. One
such suggestion was soaking a rusty metal item in some coca-cola and
then scrubbing it clean.

Well, I tried this yesterday on my tea strainer. It's the kind of
strainer that sits on top of your teacup and you pour the tea through
it, and it catches the leaves. The material is a very fine screen
mesh. The kind I have is very cheap, not stainless steel, and they
tend to get rusty. When I take the strainer off the cup and place it
on the saucer, it's kind of gross to see the black water collecting
on the saucer - rust.

Anyway, after cleaning it with coke yesterday, I discovered that
it did absolutely no good at all. What did I do wrong? I soaked it
for about an hour before scrubbing it. Is this an urban legend? Or
did it not work because I used a knock-off brand of cola (Coke
wasn't available)?

Any suggestions?

Thanks!
Joyce

Christine K. wrote:

The next version, for one cup of tea, is a strainer/teabag formed like a
double spoon with a spring that keeps the halves of the spoon closed.
You press the spoon halves open and put in (I usually "chomp" with the
spoon from the tea leaf container) about one spoon half worth, release
the pressure from the handle allowing the spoon halves to close, and put
it into your cup with the hot water.

I used to have one of those, too. But the tea leaves would escape from
it along the edges of the "spoons" and then I'd get leaves in my mouth.
It wasn't very leak-proof. Actually, the one I had didn't have a spring,
but rather, it would snap shut. But if you put a little too much tea
between the spoons, then it wouldn't shut tight. And after a while, it
just didn't work as well, and it never shut tight.

Joyce

I wrote:

I used to have one of those, too. But the tea leaves would escape from
it along the edges of the "spoons" and then I'd get leaves in my mouth.
It wasn't very leak-proof. Actually, the one I had didn't have a spring,
but rather, it would snap shut. But if you put a little too much tea
between the spoons, then it wouldn't shut tight. And after a while, it
just didn't work as well, and it never shut tight.

Actually, I just looked at the picture you posted. The one I had wasn't
like that. Mine actually did look like a small spoon, or rather, two spoon
heads facing each other. It was made of solid metal, not a mesh, but the
metal had little holes in it. You would open it, put in the tea, and then
snap it shut, and then place it into a cup of hot water in the same way
you'd put a spoon into the cup. The one you pictured does seem more
stable, less likely to let the leaves leak out along the edges.

Joyce

wrote:
There was even a theory that Jews had a lower percentage of
alcoholism than other populations because the "attraction" was
taken out of it by not making it forbidden. I don't buy this
theory, because addiction doesn't come from being attracted to
the forbidden... and anyway, is it even true that Jews have fewer

Not sure about alcoholics, but teens are most definitely attracted to
the forbidden. Mind you, they might not become alcoholics, but kids who
grow up in communities where alcohol is 'forbidden', tend to binge drink
a whole lot more when they get the chance to.

--
Victor M. Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
Send your spam he
Email me he

wrote:
I wrote:

I used to have one of those, too. But the tea leaves would escape from
it along the edges of the "spoons" and then I'd get leaves in my mouth.
It wasn't very leak-proof. Actually, the one I had didn't have a spring,
but rather, it would snap shut. But if you put a little too much tea
between the spoons, then it wouldn't shut tight. And after a while, it
just didn't work as well, and it never shut tight.

Actually, I just looked at the picture you posted. The one I had wasn't
like that. Mine actually did look like a small spoon, or rather, two spoon
heads facing each other. It was made of solid metal, not a mesh, but the
metal had little holes in it. You would open it, put in the tea, and then
snap it shut, and then place it into a cup of hot water in the same way
you'd put a spoon into the cup. The one you pictured does seem more
stable, less likely to let the leaves leak out along the edges.

Joyce

Yep, it doesn't leak as long as I don't put too much tea inside. I've
noticed that one spoon half is enough as the tea will swell when
immersed into the hot water and fills the whole ball (both halves) when
wet. Also one has to make sure that there are no strips of tea between
the "jaws" of the spoon halves when shutting it, otherwise the tea
leaves may leak out.

--
Christine in Vantaa, Finland
christal63 (at) gmail (dot) com
photos: http://photos.yahoo.com/christal63
photos: http://community.webshots.com/user/chkr63

Joyce, you can also get bamboo tea strainers that are made for catching any
leaves that want to come out of your teapot along with the tea. They
definitely never rust! After a while they turn the color of tea, but there's
no harm in that. Easy to find in any oriental grocery store, and they don't
add a metallic taste to the tea.

On 2006-03-25, penned:
Adrian A wrote:

I remember one of my sister's school friends put a tooth in a
glass of coke, it completely disolved in about a week.

Ewwww!! They should have filmed it with a time-lapse camera - that
would be good propaganda for a dentist!


When I got my root canal, the endodontist had a lovely picture in the
bathroom: an old lady with a broad smile and only one tooth in her
mouth. The caption: "Only floss the ones you want to keep!"

I've heard the statement before, but I thought the picture made it
particularly effective.

--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca

"Christine K." wrote in message
...
Marina wrote:
wrote:
Pat wrote:

But a ceramic teapot. Preheat it with boiling water before you make
tea. Pour out the hot water, then add loose tea, then add simmering
hot water and let it steep for a while. When you pour the tea,
slowly, into cups, the leaves (or flowers, twigs, roots, whatever)
will stay in the ceramic pot. No need for a strainer.

I have a ceramic teapot.

Whenever I pour tea, some leaves always come out into the strainer.
Are you saying that pre-heating the pot before making tea will keep
the leaves in the pot when you pour the tea?

I had a ceramic teapot with a built-in strainer, also ceramic. That one
broke. Now I use a stainless-steel "teabag" in my current porcelain pot.
The "teabag" is a strainer of stainless steel, formed like an egg, with a
chain with a hook to attach it to the edge of your cup if you're making
just one cup of tea. It opens into two halves and you put the tea leaves
inside. It does get gunky, but it's not rust, it's the tea that
discolours it. Doesn't affect the taste. I rinse it every day before use,
and put it in the dishwasher whenever I remember.


I sometimes use tebags of the ordinary kind, buy the tea "ready-bagged".
And this is what DH Janne also uses when he drinks tea.

The next version, for one cup of tea, is a strainer/teabag formed like a
double spoon with a spring that keeps the halves of the spoon closed. You
press the spoon halves open and put in (I usually "chomp" with the spoon
from the tea leaf container) about one spoon half worth, release the
pressure from the handle allowing the spoon halves to close, and put it
into your cup with the hot water.

If I make a pot of tea I can either put several teabags into the pot with
the hot water or use a long kind of filter bag I buy. It's a long and
narrow bag made of filter paper, like coffee filters. You put the desired
amount of tea leaves into the bag and put the bag into your teapot but let
the top of the bag hang out, held by the lid of the pot, to keep the tea
leaves from escaping into the pot and then into your cup.

You gave me an idea. I used to drink coffee and still have some coffee
filters
lying around. Now I can try to make a filter bag for tea leaves.
I found that when I put a lid on a cup of tea with boiling water and let it
seeps,
most of the tea leaves will often sink to the bottom of the cup. No need for
a strainer. But it has to be just right befort that happens.

Winnie


Grabbed a quick photo of both the teabags (I happened to have two
different brands, shaped slightly differently) and the spoon formed thingy
and put them into the trusty old Yahoo Photos:

the spoon:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/christ...dc.jpg&.src=ph
or http://tinyurl.com/o8e7f

the bags:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/christ...a3.jpg&.src=ph
or http://tinyurl.com/onxlw

--
Christine in Vantaa, Finland
christal63 (at) gmail (dot) com
photos: http://photos.yahoo.com/christal63
photos: http://community.webshots.com/user/chkr63

I was told of another use for Coke:
When you get a cold, drink some boiled Coke with some fresh lemon juice
added.

Winnie

"PatM" wrote in message
oups.com...
(Snort) Old custom in the south! Peanuts in your Coke bottle! Maybe
not in Kentucky, then. But you are NOT *that* old, even though Nehi,
not Coke, was the favored refreshment in my childhood neighborhood.
Nobody but the grownups drank tea. Matthew

Back in the late 70's I went to school in NY for a year. They called
it "soda", which was new to me as we called it "pop" back in Montana,
AND they put peanuts in the bottle. Of course I came back talkin about
soda, and doing the peanut thingy, and everyone thought I was nutty!LOL

Mythbusters did a big segment on the Coke uses myth and, according to
them, pretty much disproved everything but as a meat tenderizer. Maybe
someone else can remember more particulars about that show.

PatM

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote in message
...

Well, of course having been raised a WASP, our only dietary considerations
were financial rather than religious. ;-) I never thought about it, but
before the advent of soft drinks, what DID a kosher household serve its
kids as a mealtime beverage? (Although if they were Russian Jews, maybe
weak tea?) Certainly, before some sort of refrigeration, children in
many cultures were served a waterd down version of the wine or beer the
adults drank, but SFAIK, Jewish families were more abstemious (except for
the holidays).

When I was a kid, we didn't have a refrigerator . I think I drank tea.
Definitely soup with meals.
Chinese kids started drinking tea at an early age. We go for Dim Sum
and ate them with lots of tea.

Winnie




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