Restaurant owners/workers, anyone who has TEA URNS. Vital!!!!

FOOD SAFETY ALERT. Okay. Anyone who works any restaurant that has TEA URNS.
How do you/your workers clean them? Do you run water through them? Use a human-safe cleaner? Maybe you wipe them out and run sanitizer through them and take the nozzles off and soak them?

Think it's clean?

LET ME LEARN YOU SOMETHING SERIOUS. Because this can give e-coli to your customers and you. Do NOT just rinse with water or wipe the inside out. Just rinsing the nozzles doesn't do CRAP.

Take off the nozzle completely.
Take it apart if possible and scrub it til it looks brand new.
Now, you know the part the nozzle screws on to? Inside that is some black, snotty disgusting crap. I 100% guarantee it too. Your tea is flowing over that. You gotta get that OUT. This is the spout the nozzle screws on to, sticking out there:



Use one of those little brush things on the long thin handles to clean the spout the nozzle screws on to. And use a green scrubby to thoroughly clean the inside of the urn. If you have 'stainless steel' or whatever the typical restaurant tea urn is made of, you want it that steel color: not yellowish, not goldish, not brown and surely not dark brown. Steel color, no if's ands or buts.

Even take a thin towel, get it soaking, twist it small and feed it through the spout the nozzle screws on to. give it a good 'back and forth' cleaning, pulling on both ends, you know what I mean. Once the towel is clean, there you go. Rinse that baby out thoroughly. Once this crap is out of your nozzle, urn itself and the spout the nozzle screws on to, you won't need to deep clean it like that, except maybe once to twice a week. Shoot, using the bristled thingie, (I'll put a pic below), you can use that nightly to clean the spout and the nozzle and be fine.



Pic to follow will be gross but you NEED to see what happens. The gunk pic, I guarantee you 100% that your gunk will be pitch black, just as slimy, just as dangerous to humans who consume tea running over it.



Even if YOU hate tea, never drink it, think of those who do. In Illinois if you have nasty tea urns like this, they can and WILL shut you down due to a CDC code violation. Health departments are dead serious about this .

Every place I've worked since 08 when I learned about this has been taught how to properly clean their tea urns. Every single place I have worked since then has, every single time, black snotty tea gunk in their spouts/nozzles/ urns. Every single one. Take this seriously, food workers. Every thing you must NOT skimp on, cleaning wise. This one is sadly over looked because 99% of folk do NOT know about this.

a reply to: sarra1833

Great tips, advice, and write up!

Those parts sure do look dirty enough to harbor some nasty bacteria.

Heck, ever since my friend started working as a lab tech at a food safety testing facility, he's learned that raw onions are one of the most bacteria infested things out there!

a reply to: 1Providence1

That they are indeed. Onions are high on the list. Food safety goes beyond merely expiration dates and FIFO (first in, first out) and so on. It's about handwashing, a LOT of hand washing (I probably wash my hands in an 8 hr shift more than a surgeon would, I bet), sweeping, mopping with a clean mop and bucket, wiping down surfaces and utensils, etc etc.

Lots go in to keeping the public and workers healthy when around food.

a reply to: sarra1833

S&F'd *shudders*
that metal contraption is anathema to a tea drinker
/extends little finger

this thing is set up for business locations, office lunch rooms, etc? (mass consumption)
all with the chemical fluoride water to boot, no doubt?
..i think we sometimes refer to these folks as sheeple, don't we?

everyone dreams of leaving the pack, abandoning the rat race, graduating from the animal farm..

(but) even the kindest person can't simply teach an old dog new tricks
the dog has to actually want to improve its condition

Don't believe everything selling in restaurant is clean .

a reply to: candlestick

Oh so very true! I have worked places where some of the teens want to 'get out early' when closing and do half ass jobs (oh we don't have to change out food bins this time, just wipe them down to make them look clean). GROSS. If I'm the only one doing food safety and cleanliness, I ensure on my shift I'm ENFORCING others to do their jobs thoroughly, if 'm management or not. I take food safety and cleanliness as TOP priority. If the guest has to wait a few extra minutes to get safe, clean food, items used to cut, create the food, etc., then they will wait. I only wish there was 4 million me's to work in every food place in the world. I bet a LOT of illnesses would be stopped with just THAT.

Don't get me wrong. I'm NOT the only food safety Sally in the world.
But enough don't care or don't think about giving it 100% of the time. Food is vital. Health is vital. Food ties into Health in toooooo many ways. We know this.

Unfortunately, I don't think any restaurants I have worked at would enforce that kind of cleaning.
Lucky for me I don't really eat out much (and I never drink tea).

a reply to: chelsdh

No doubt most don't know about it. I'm hoping people will speak up if they work at restaurants or eat at them. Sometimes word of mouth is the strongest ammunition.