How teewai Reads Your Plate: The Food Scan Behind Your Stain Load
Your teeth don’t stain by accident — they stain by chemistry. teewai’s food scan identifies what’s on your plate and scores its staining power in seconds.
Every cup of coffee, every glass of wine, every bowl of curry leaves a measurable mark on your enamel. The question is how much — and that depends on three chemical properties of what you consume: chromogenicity (how intensely colored it is), acidity (how much it roughens enamel so stains cling) and tannin content (how strongly it binds pigment to the tooth). teewai’s food scan reads a photo of your meal, identifies the items, and scores each one on those three axes to build a single number: your daily stain load.
| Food / drink | Chromogenicity | Acidity (pH) | Tannins | Stain risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coffee | High | ~5.0 | Moderate | High |
| Black tea | High | ~4.9 | High | High |
| Red wine | High | ~3.4 | High | Very high |
| Curry / turmeric | High | ~6.3 | Low | High |
| Berries | Moderate | ~3.5 | Low | Moderate |
| Cola | Moderate | ~2.5 | None | Moderate |
| Cheese | Low | ~6.5 | None | Protective |
| Water | None | ~7.0 | None | Protective |
pH below ~5.5 is below the threshold at which enamel begins to demineralize, making it easier for stains to bind.
A composite of chromogenicity, acidity and tannin binding — the same three properties teewai weighs when it scores your plate.
The scan works the same way a nutrition app reads a plate, but for a different output: instead of calories, it returns a staining score. Snap your meal, teewai identifies the items, and each one is matched against a catalog of chromogenic, acidic and tannin values. The numbers roll up into a daily stain load — a running total of how much staining pressure your teeth are under from what you eat and drink.
The point is not to quit coffee. It is to see the cumulative pressure and offset it. A water rinse right after a cup cuts new staining substantially in the first 30 minutes. A straw bypasses your front teeth. Spacing your cups apart gives saliva time to remineralize. None of these require willpower — they require awareness, which is what the stain load gives you.
From plate to smile
The food scan and the teeth scan are two halves of the same loop: your teeth scan shows where your shade is today, and your food scan shows what is pulling it darker tomorrow. Log a few meals and teewai connects the two — so your whitening plan accounts for what you actually consume, not an idealized diet.
See where you sit on the VITA scale — scan your smile with teewai.