Tasting metal in your coffee or water when drinking from your favorite stainless stainless steel mug or bottle? In this article, we talk about what is possibly causing the metal taste and how you can avoid it.
You could be experiencing that metallic taste when your mouth or lips are touching the metal or stainless steel when you are drinking. Or like others, you could be tasting the metal flavors from your drinks even when you are drinking using a plastic straw out of a stainless steel mug.
So What Causes The Metallic Taste Or The Metal Flavor In Your Coffee Or Water?
1. Our Lips Or Skin Is Reacting With The Metal
Stainless steel is made primarily from iron. And according to some studies, it is possible that the iron from stainless steel drinkware is actually reacting with our skin or lips to create that metallic taste or odor.
In this scenario, your stainless steel mug or tumbler is not emitting the metallic taste or smell. Rather, it is our body coming into contact with the stainless steel that results in this metallic taste. This phenomenon could also happen over time as your stainless steel drinkware gets slowly worn down with repeated use.
2. Metal Leaching
The metal taste in your coffee and drinks is sometimes attributed to metal leaching. In recent years, there is an increasing focus on how susceptible is stainless steel to metal leaching.
While the amount of metal leaching depends on the grade of stainless steel that your mugs or bottles are made from, studies have shown that higher temperatures, longer storage duration and liquids with higher acidity will increase the level of metal leaching. Wear and tear of the stainless steel surface overtime (partially due to the factors we have just mentioned) could also potentially lead to higher level of metal leaching.
And yes, coffee, tea and lemon juices are some examples of acidic drinks.
3. Rust And Tarnish
Although many people believe that stainless steel does not rust, this is in fact not completely true and there are many articles that discuss this. The chromium-oxide layer on the surface of stainless steel protects it from corrosion. However, if this top layer is damaged and prevented from re-forming then rust and tarnish may start to form.
Rust and tarnish has that metallic flavor that people complain about and it is one of the possible reasons behind the metal taste in your drinks.
4. Residual Smell Or Flavors
While not necessarily a metallic taste, many people also complain about a residual or funky flavor in their drinks. This is caused by coffee oils, soap and other liquids that were previously in your stainless steel mugs or tumblers. For most stainless steel drinkware, there are actually tiny crevices on the surface of stainless steel that substances can get stuck in. And this explains why your stainless steel drinkware smells bad and your drinks taste funky.
How To Get Rid Of The Metal Taste In Your Drinks?
Regardless of the reasons behind the metallic taste you are experiencing, no one wants their favorite coffee and drinks to taste of metal or any other undesirable flavors.
So how do we solve this problem?
The easiest way is simply not to use stainless steel drinkware but I would bet that is the last thing on most people’s mind as many of us love our insulated stainless steel mugs and bottles. They are just so many great things about them.
The next best solution is to protect the stainless steel so that it does not come into contact with anything that might react with it and wear it down.
And this is where the Steelceramics cup comes in. A proprietary ceramic coating is applied on the exposed stainless steel interior of the cup. This ceramic coating protects and prevents the stainless steel from interacting with its environment. This means no more metal taste or flavor in your coffee or drinks.
