Life becomes pretty damn hard when you are a tea lover and at the same time, the stains on your teeth won’t let you stay in peace :(
Whenever you think of reducing the cups, a wave of somnolence comes in and takes you back to square one!
Mornings are impossible without that hot cup of tea; work is as dull as ever if you don’t have your daily dose of caffeine, and all the hangouts planned with friends and family start and end with it too.
You probably know that you’re in love with your tea a bit too much and have accepted that reducing its intake is a flop idea.
Therefore let me tell you how to drink tea without staining teeth.
It’s simple, easy and very much doable. Just start drinking health tea!
On a serious note though, rinsing your mouth after every cup of tea, brushing your teeth correctly twice a day, flossing and using a straw are some of the great ways to reduce the staining on your teeth.
Apart from that, getting professional teeth whitening can go a long way!
To learn more about Drinking Tea Without Staining Teeth, read the full article.
Does Tea Permanently Stain Teeth?
The yellowish brown hue evenly distributed on the surface of your teeth may look like a permanent discoloration, but it really isn’t.
However, when there is a lot of plaque and calculus in your mouth, the stains are going to be even more stubborn.
That’s because plaque attracts stains and if not cleaned by regular flossing, the stains will transfer to the surface of your teeth along with the thickening of the plaque which will eventually turn into tartar.
As we all know, tartar cannot be removed by brushing, there is no way out except for a professional cleaning procedure to get rid of both the tartar and the tea stains.
So if you fall in this category, visit your dentist and get your scaling done.
If the stains have left your teeth discolored even after scaling, a bleaching or teeth whitening procedure will easily help you get rid of that.
Now once you are done with the procedure, make sure that you only drink your tea with a straw and are drinking water or rinsing your mouth after each beverage.
Along with that, brush and floss regularly.
Trust me, the stains will not be a problem anymore and you will be able to drink your tea with no worries at all!
Does Tea Without Milk Stain Your Teeth?
So the deal with tea is that it contains ‘tannin’ which is the main source of the repulsive tea stains. Since it’s a water soluble compound, the staining properties increase with how well the tea is processed.
The more processed, the darker the stains.
However, adding milk to your tea could actually be beneficial. According to research, casein is the main protein present in milk and binds to the tannins in tea and reduces staining.
Doctor Ava Chow who led the study claims that the color change observed in their experiments is comparable to the color change seen with bleaching products and whitening toothpastes.
Quite unbelievable and a pretty huge claim, but who knows it might even work?
So if you don’t want to lose the essence of your tea along with reducing stained teeth, add a splash of milk to your hot cup of chai, It’s a really good idea.
P.S. For lactose intolerant individuals, non-dairy milk (such as almond and soy) does not contain casein, so it won’t have the same effect.
Does Drinking Tea Through A Straw Prevent Staining?
If you have ever gotten your teeth bleaching/whitening done from a dentist they must have asked you to stop consuming tea or coffee for a few days.
If you can’t go a day without it, they strictly advise you to drink it through a straw.
Now using a straw won’t magically prevent staining of your teeth stains but it will surely protect the liquid from getting near the visible front surfaces of your teeth.
This way the aesthetics of your teeth aren’t compromised and you can continue to smile with no worries about the yellowness that the tea would have otherwise bestowed on the front surface of your teeth.
What About Coffee Stains?
If you are a big fan of the Americano, this part is for you!
That’s because black coffee does not only stain your teeth by creeping in the micro cracks of the enamel, but can also soften the enamel layer.
At this point, the popular suggestion of brushing your teeth right after putting the coffee cup down won’t prove to be a very good idea.
In fact doing so will make your enamel weaker and more susceptible to staining.
Don’t think that adding milk to it would be as beneficial as that of tea. Unless the milk to coffee ratio is 3:1 it won’t make a difference as the same acids and pigments are present in coffee with milk/cream as black coffee.
The one thing that you can do to prevent a coffee smile is by drinking more water than you drink coffee.
Along with that, don’t forget to floss because the staining between your teeth is only because you’re too lazy to do that.
The Moral Of The Tea Story Is….
The tea manufacturing business is still as successful as ever because of people like you and me.
We can’t even function without our favorite cup of tea, let alone reduce its intake.
But at the same time, we don’t want our smiles to be compromised.
Therefore, it’s necessary to brush your teeth correctly and twice a day (if you are a champion, brush them after each cup) along with flossing them at least once.
Using a straw can also help with keeping the aesthetics of your smile at bay!
If you are late in realizing the damage been done in terms of stains and calculus, then there is nothing some professional teeth cleaning and whitening procedures can’t do.
So stop wondering and worrying about if these stains are stuck with you for life and visit your dentist now!
According to research, there is something really fascinating about adding milk to your tea: it helps prevent your teeth from getting stained by binding its major protein casein to the staining molecule tannin present in tea.
Add dairy milk to your tea and see for yourself?
But if you are a true American, coffee is going to be your daily source of caffeine..
Wondering if all the same things are applicable in your case too?
Well mostly however, adding milk to your coffee won’t cancel out the staining properties of the pigments and brushing your teeth right after will only make your enamel weaker.
What you can do is increase your water intake to at least as much as that of the coffee and floss religiously!
Apart from that, visit your dentist at least every six months to get a professional dental cleaning done.
All in all, I hope that the query of whether to choose tea or your smile has finally been solved through this article :)
References
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