The drugstore variety of toothpastes today promise all sorts of benefits for optimizing your oral hygiene: whiter teeth, enamel protection, healthy gums, and most of all, fresh breath. The last of those, it turns out, depends less on an artificially flavored chemical formula than the techniques and tools you implement to clean your mouth, and particularly, your tongue, a harbor for microbes and malodorous debris.

Tongue scraping with a simple, lo-tech instrument—such as this copper one from Made by Yoke, or even the back of a spoon—can effectively reduce the bacteria known to cause bad breath and dental decay. The practice has been implemented by Ayurvedic medicine for centuries as a remedy for improving overall oral health and holistic wellness. According to a study published by the Journal Of Clinical Periodontology, regularly using a tongue scraper after each meal can even improve your sense of taste by allowing you to better discern between flavor sensations (and thereby prevent you from over-salting and seasoning your food). The jury is still out on whether cleaning your tongue with a scraper is more effective than a toothbrush, but don’t expect to replace one for the other.