In a world where there’s a coffee shop on almost every corner and you need a brew just to kick-start your day, the random coffee stain is almost inevitable. Whether it’s on your clothing, your furniture, your car’s upholstery, or your carpets and rugs, sometimes a spill can’t be avoided. What if your solution lay just inside your fridge and was not only budget-friendly, but a kitchen staple that most people likely keep stocked all the time? While coffee stain-eliminating hacks with baby powder and kitchen staples like baking soda are touted to remove stains, sparkling water has been noted to provide assistance when your brew spills. Some experts note that sparkling mineral water can diminish and disperse your coffee stains, leaving your fabrics just as fresh as they were before your mishap with Joe (cuppa Joe, that is). Supposedly, all you need to do is pour a little on the spill, then dab it away to remove brown spots on fabrics and materials.

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To understand why sparkling water could work on coffee stains, I did a little digging. Apparently the carbonation in your sparkling mineral water can penetrate the fabric fibers and literally lift the offending spill from them. However, this method won’t work with older, dried stains, and therefore should only be administered if you recently spilled coffee on your shirt, couch, or rug. To test this theory, I decided to try using sparkling water on several different materials.

I grabbed a tea towel and an older shirt. The tea towel was a cotton cloth fabric, and the T-shirt was a 94% cotton and a polyester/elastane mix material with marl color that switches between gray and white. This piece was fairly thick, but despite the darker colors mixed throughout, a brown stain would be obvious, especially on the front. While these were my two options, you could even try this hack to clean coffee stains from mattresses and bedding or furniture.

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We have a standard one-cup Keurig, and I used a medium roast coffee pod to make a cup of black coffee as the first test. I also decided to make a second cup with milk to see if this hack worked for mixed liquids. I purchased a bottle of Italian Sparkling Mineral Water from Whole Foods for $2.09, since we usually only keep flavored sparkling water in the fridge, and I wasn’t sure if that would work. I also grabbed a microfiber cloth, which have positive and negative charged elements that also help pull debris from fabrics and other items. Between the aeration in the sparkling water and the pull of the cloth, the idea was that the stain should come up easily. I laid both the towel and the shirt on a flat surface, completely dry and both clean of any other stains.

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I started off by using a small spoon to spill a few droplets of black coffee onto the tea towel and the shirt. It’s sometimes suggested to allow the mineral water to sit for five to 10 minutes, and that using cold water is better than warm. I free poured the bottle on the stain and let it sit for five minutes to ensure it had time to absorb. Then, I used a second, clean towel to blot at each spill. I blotted for 15 seconds and noted that while the brown coloring lightened, it didn’t disappear completely. I decided to try the milky coffee to a different area next.

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The added element of milk could make coffee stains harder to remove because there is protein in the cream. This extra “layer” or ingredient can require stain removal efforts to double. I waited 45 seconds — about how long it would take me to walk from my living room to the fridge to get the water, then poured it directly onto the fabric once again. I waited another 15 seconds, then blotted.

It took several applications of the sparkling water and lots of rubbing and dabbing to lighten the stain enough that it wasn’t as visible. After about 10 minutes of work, the coffee did not come out completely, no matter how much I worked at it. I didn’t find any difference between the milk and black coffee with the sparkling water trick: both lightened but didn’t disappear completely. The sparkling water didn’t feel like a strong enough ingredient to combat such a dark stain, and the results weren’t impressive or immediate.

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Coffee stains are notorious for showing up where you don’t want them, but unless you can live without the caffeinated boost, it’s a necessary spillage risk. With that said, having a solution to remove stains when they happen makes the cup of coffee worth it, but sparkling water might not be that option. I am not sure if it was the fabric I used, but my findings were that this hack did not work well. Blotting only seemed to spread the coffee further out into the material and made it look bigger. I do think this could be useful as a preventative measure while you find a stronger stain remover, helping to avoid super dark remnants. However, I believe keeping a Tide Pen or similar product nearby would help rid upholstery and clothing of coffee spills more effectively. Coffee tannins are tough, and sparkling water might just fall a little short in the battle for clean, stain-free threads.

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