4 Serious Tips for Removing Stubborn Coffee Stains

We’ve all been there. You’re trying to hold (and console) a crying baby in one hand while answering your smartphone with the other, and it’s so early you haven’t even had your first cup of coffee yet. You’re late for work, and you barely had time to shower and put on your business suit, which is just back, fresh from the cleaners. That’s when disaster happens. You don’t have a third hand, so you attempt to maneuver a quick sip of your morning coffee with your hands full, and half the cup spills onto your brand new white blouse.

Clear the deck's everyone. Mom is about to explode!

Let’s face it if you can’t live without your caffeine fix, you’re eventually going to come mano e mano with some nasty coffee stains. Like writer and coffee fan Joe Snedeker recently wrote, coffee stains are more than just annoying; they can ruin clothing if not treated quickly by soaking them in pure, soft water.

Old stains are said to be much harder to get out than fresh stains. This means if you’ve just spilled the coffee on your new white blouse, you’d better put the crying baby down, remove the shirt, and get it underwater as soon as humanly possible (just be happy the spill didn’t happen at work).

Here are some helpful tips for removing unwanted coffee stains from your favorite clothes.

Pure Soft Water vs. Coffee Stain

If your home is not equipped with a soft water purification system like a Whirlpool water filter, for instance, you’re dealing with hard water. Hard water, which contains unwanted minerals, chemicals, and metals like magnesium, is almost impossible to work with when it comes to cleaning coffee stains since it leaves an unsightly, greasy residue on the clothing.

Most people who are forced to deal with hard water try to make up for this by using more detergent. But, usually, the coffee stains still will not come out.

But by running cold, soft water directly from the tap onto a fresh coffee stain from front to back for about 10 to fifteen minutes until the water coming out of the stain is running perfectly clear, you can save your garment from an ugly permanent brown spot.

Add Detergent to the Coffee Stain

Says Snedeker, if the cold soft water method isn’t affecting the stain, try rubbing some laundry detergent onto it. Actively rub the liquid detergent while running the water through the stain for three to five more minutes.

After that, run the water through the stain for another five or so minutes until the water is crystal clear. This should significantly reduce the brown color if not get rid of it altogether.

Still Got Coffee Stain?

That pesky brown coffee mark still occupying real estate on your white blouse even after running it under cold water and rubbing a liquid detergent into it for up to twenty minutes? Then the time has come to break out the big guns.

One powerful idea is to combine some of your powdered detergents with an equal part of white wine vinegar. Add some water, and then stir the whole thing into a sticky paste.

Grab one of your old toothbrushes and scrub the stain on both the front and back of the blouse. Once again, rinse the stain under cold soft water until the paste, and the brown coloring is gone.

Finally, hang the blouse up and allow it to air dry.

Coffee Stain Still There?

Forget the big guns. It’s time to go nuclear. If you have a spray or gel stain remover, rub it into the stain. Then give it five minutes to really sink in.

Once more, go to the sink, and rinse the brown coffee spot. Do this for up to ten more minutes, or until the water is clear. Stain removers are engineered to infiltrate the clothing fibers and attack the stain on a chemical level.

Once this task is completed, toss the blouse into the washing machine and wash it in cold water. Allow it to air dry on a rack after the wash cycle is completed.

Morning coffee can be the elixir of life, but it can also make your life a living hell if you spill it.

If you wish to save yourself from future coffee stain headaches, make sure you not only have plenty of detergent on hand, plus stain removers but also pure, soft water!