My coworker’s tea mug. Is this normal behaviour? Refuses to let it be washed…

by miiiikec

32 comments
  1. I guess you could argue the mug has been “seasoned” like you would a cast-iron pan, but I wouldn’t drink from it.

  2. Kinda smart actually because no one is going to steal your mug when it looks like this

  3. Definitely building up a tolerance to… something, for sure. Maybe their own tastebuds?

  4. Clever. By not washing it your coworker has ensured that no one would use “their” mug.

  5. my survival instincts are kicking in. do not stand close to this person

  6. Normality is an illusion.

    What’s normal for the spider, is chaos for the fly.

  7. It would take so long to clean that now. 30 mins scrubbing in boiling water and there would still be light brown patches.

  8. He really wanted a brown mug instead of a white one, didn’t he?

  9. I’m not British but over here in the states I’ve heard this can be a Navy tradition

  10. There’s always one person and they’re usually quite pleased with themselves about it

  11. My mugs sometimes look like that (although, admittedly perhaps not quite as bad as that).

    I fill it up with warm water, add a Steradent tablet and leave for a while. Pour the water out, give it a proper wash and it’s good as new.

  12. As long as they don’t have milk with their coffee it should be fine

  13. It’s not normal but it’s okay. Boiling water goes in it every day, so it’s sterilised regularly.

    There’s some mad old Chinese proverbs about never washing a tea pot, the idea being that when you’re 80 you can just put water in and you’ll get tea forever.

  14. I ‘de scale’ mine about once a year and my tea is awful for weeks afterwards.

  15. Reminds me of working alongside two wonderful 70-odd year old sisters in a Co-op many moons ago. Once a week, they would bleach the cups to get rid of the stains. The first cup after that left my gums rather itchy!

  16. My old high school maths teacher had a cup like this. He’d only ever wash it on school holidays. Said it helped boost his immune system.

  17. Someone has a mug like this at work. It’s rank, but I guess if you run out of coffee you just put hot water in it and hey presto instant stain coffee.

  18. That’s fucking rank.

    I used to work with a guy who kept his coffee cup like this, and only drank cheap instant stuff with coffee mate. Absolute lunatic.

  19. Just more flavour in it but no, it’s not really normal. Unless it’s a collectable they don’t want anyone else using which is clever.

  20. Its his life work. Allow him to enjoy his cuppa that gets slightly smaller every time elevenses rolls around

  21. Now a nice build up of tea essence, I can understand, but… this has become tar.

  22. Yeah it keeps the flavour. Similar to how greasy spoon cafs don’t wash their grills too regularly or with too strong a disinfectant

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