Stains on cups and mugs can cause some embarrassment when having guests over, particularly when they are of a dark brown nature.

It’s the tannins in tea and coffee that are responsible for the brown stains left in mugs.

Tannins are plant compounds found in tea and coffee (and some other foods and drinks) and are what give these hot drinks their distinctive, slightly bitter flavour. Mostly, tannin stains are not an issue, they're just unsightly and tricky to clean.

Having seen great success with using one natural item to remove limescale stains from my kettle, I thought it could be effective on tea-stained cups - and it was.

The product in question is citric acid. The acidic nature worked well to dissolve the stains in my cup that had built up for about 11 months.

Citric acid also has natural antibacterial properties which will sanitise the mug as well as lift away the stains.

While many cleaning fans have found success after using bleach, the chemical does not fully remove the stains but merely masks them instead.

Aside from bleach ditching the bleach method, I didn’t fancy spending time scrubbing the mug only to be left with scratches on the inside.

With this citric acid method, there was no scrubbing needed at all and was pretty quick - the longest part was waiting five minutes for the cleaning solution to work its magic. 

All you need for this method is a tablespoon of citric acid and boiling water at the ready.

I streamed by adding the critic acid to the stained mug before adding in boiling water - you only need enough to cover the stains.

As I had stains that had taken over higher up inside the cup as well as the base, I filled the entire mug with the boiling water.

I checked in on the cup after three minutes but noticed the stains were still there. However, after a further two minutes, the stains had vanished.

I then rinsed out the mug with hot water from the tap and washed it as usual with some washing-up liquid. The cup was completely clean without a single brown stain left behind.

While this method is effective, it’s not my number-one go-to household remedy. For those after a quicker solution, then need to give denture tablets a whirl as they work in three minutes and sometimes less.