8 mistakes with a copper bottle

Little work, if you do it right

A copper bottle is a simple thing: fill it, leave it overnight, drink it. The questions we get about it are almost always about the same things: dark patches inside, dull marks outside, or how exactly to clean it. And almost always there is one small habit behind it that is easy to turn around. These are the eight we come across most.

In short

• Clean the inside by shaking lemon juice and salt in the closed bottle, not with half a lemon.
• Still water only, and drink it within a day.
• Screw the cap on hand-tight, no tighter.
• Let the bottle dry upside down and open before you put it away.
• Wash by hand: no dishwasher, steel wool or scouring pad.
• After lemon or citric acid, always rinse thoroughly instead of wiping.
• A dark inside is normal and safe. Only green or blue is worth removing.

1. Cleaning the inside with half a lemon

Cleaning the bottle before first use is a good habit. It is just that half a lemon with salt gets no further than the neck. The wall below it stays untouched, and that is exactly where you see marks after the first night.

Put the juice of half a lemon, a tablespoon of coarse salt and a splash of lukewarm water into the bottle, screw the cap on and shake for a minute or two. Leave it for a few minutes at most, rinse thoroughly a few times and let the bottle dry upside down. A teaspoon of citric acid in a cup of lukewarm water works just as well. If your bottle is already covered in marks, read dark spots inside your copper bottle.

2. Putting anything other than still water in it

Juice, kombucha, lemon water, soft drinks and sparkling water look harmless, but acid and carbonation make copper react much faster than water does. Hours in the bottle means a dull, uneven inside. The tradition of tamra jal is about water and nothing else.

Pour anything acidic or fizzy into a glass and keep the bottle for still water. Coffee and tea belong in a copper mug, and you drink those rather than leave them standing for hours.

3. Letting water stand for days

Water that stands in copper overnight is exactly the point. A bottle you fill and then forget is something else: after a few days the water is no longer fresh, and the inside has had all that time to change colour.

Fill the bottle in the evening and drink it in the morning. Count on four to eight hours, and drink the water within 24 hours. How much to drink a day is in how often a day to drink from a copper bottle, and how that fits into an ordinary week in tamra jal in practice.

4. Screwing the cap on as tight as you can

It feels safe to screw the cap down hard, especially when the bottle goes into your bag. But the bottle does not seal through force: the rubber ring in the cap does that. Tighten too hard and you damage that ring, and then it seals less well over time.

Hand-tight is enough. Once you feel resistance, it is closed.

5. Closing the bottle wet and putting it away

Cap on straight after rinsing and into the cupboard: that leaves moisture in the bottle with nowhere to go. It works on the copper for days, and that is where the marks appear that you later want to polish out. The water that stands in the bottle overnight belongs there and is a matter of hours; moisture left behind is a matter of days.

After rinsing, let the bottle drain upside down and then dry open. Only put the cap on once the inside is dry. Keep it somewhere with some air around it, or in the velvet pouch.

6. The dishwasher, steel wool or a scouring pad

The dishwasher is the quickest way to make copper dull: the heat and the detergent leave uneven, lifeless patches that do not come out again. Steel wool and scouring pads leave scratches, and discolouration settles into those scratches faster.

Wash the bottle by hand with warm water and dry it straight away. If you want to polish, use lemon and salt (not too hard: salt is mildly abrasive and dissolves well in the lemon juice) or citric acid. Which household products work and which do damage is in cleaning copper: soda, vinegar, lemon or citric acid.

7. Wiping instead of rinsing

After polishing with lemon or citric acid it is tempting to wipe the bottle and put it away. But a cloth does not lift the acid everywhere, certainly not in the neck or between the facets of a hammered bottle. That trace keeps working in that one spot, so cleaning is exactly what gives you new marks. The same goes for a bottle you soak in vinegar overnight: that eats into the metal and leaves a dull, uneven surface.

After polishing, hold the bottle under the tap for twenty seconds while turning it, rinse the inside out a few times, and only dry it afterwards. Always do the whole bottle in one go, not just the spot that bothers you.

8. Panicking about a dark inside

Dark, often patchy areas inside come with a new bottle, sometimes after a single night. It is a thin layer of copper oxide, and you can keep drinking from it. Anyone who takes fright and starts scrubbing daily or with harsh products wears the copper down for nothing, and does not get a more even bottle in return.

So let brown and black sit; polishing is for the shine, not for safety. Only green or blue deposits are worth removing before you refill. What has been measured is in dark spots inside your copper bottle, and why copper changes colour at all in why copper turns green or black.

And the rest takes care of itself

Turn these eight around and a copper bottle is hardly any work: rinse it, let it dry, and polish now and then if you like the shine. The full routine is in caring for a copper bottle, the steps for your bottle in the water bottle guide, and how to hold on to the shine in how to keep copper shiny. Still wondering whether copper suits you? Read the advantages and drawbacks honestly side by side.

Take a look at the water bottle, the cup, the mug or the jug.