Guinea Pig: Karen
THE CLAIM
According to this video (which is circulating around Facebook), used tea bags can be used for a variety of things. It claims that you can use tea bags to aid in dishwashing.
THE TEST
To test out this theory, we broke down the experiment into two parts. On the first night, we cooked some ground beef and cleaned the pan by soaking it overnight in plain, hot water. The next morning, the grease wiped off surprisingly well given that no degreasing agent was used. However, the pan did smell like old hamburger meat. We used dish soap to finish the job (and get rid of the smell).
The next night we cooked some bacon (same pan), and this time soaked the pan in hot water over night with six used tea bags. The next morning the grease wiped away about as easily as it did with plain water. And the pan smelled like bacon and earl grey. We again used dish soap to remove residule grease and smell.
CONCLUSION
Water with used tea bags doesn't clean much better than water without tea bags.
We wonder whether or not soaking tea water in your sink repeatedly over time would stain your dishes and/or sink.
