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The coffee industry has increased dramatically over recent years in the UK with some 1.7bn cups of coffee sold at more than 18,000 outlets, this doesn’t even touch on the vending machine market that is installed in thousands of offices, industrial units, leisure centres, car showrooms and retail parks outlets.

With the increase in coffee consumption, it is inevitable that there will be in increase of spillages, not just a straight freeze dried coffee though….you’ll have fresh bean coffees, latte, cappuccino, mocha, expresso and the list goes on! So what does this mean for the carpet? Well, dependent on the makeup of the carpet, polypropylene, nylon, wool, 80/20 they will absorb the coffee tannin in different ways, some will migrate to the backing of the carpet faster whereas others like wool will absorb into the pile faster.

How do we tackle and remove these stains? The first and most important thing to do is vacuum the carpet using a commercial upright vacuum cleaner, you will have removed any dry spoilage from within the carpet. Now this has been done you can move on to specific and targeted coffee spot removal, follow the steps below;

1. Using a clean soft white terry towel, spray a general carpet spotter on the towel and dab the coffee stain to see if you get a transfer of coffee on to the towel if you do, great. You will need to work slowly and repeat the process until all of the coffee stains are removed. With a lot of experience, we recommend this carpet spot remover for general stain removal.
2. If the stain has transferred to the towel but has not removed completely, then it is time to use a specific tannin remover. These are most commonly manufactured using sodium metabisulphite and should be used with care. Again repeat the process using the spotting towel to see if a transfer is taking place if so continue until the stain is removed or there is no more transfer.
3. Sometimes you can lightly spray a tannin remover on the difficult coffee stains and leave to break the bond with the fibres before cleaning the carpet.

It should be understood that some coffee stains can be permanent due to the following reasons; the temperature that the coffee was spilt, the type of coffee, a previous attempt has been made using an oxidising carpet spot remover and set the stain in the fibres.

If you require any further information, advice or would like to book a FREE site survey please contact us – 01564 742 095