Take a sip, stay a while.
If you are drinking bad coffee with powdered creamer, you must absolutely use a diner mug or its equivalent. Think: slightly too small, a handle that crunches your fingers so you have to leave your pinky out, and a thick lip that curves slightly out. This is designed thusly so you knock your teeth on the protruded lip so many times you forget how terrible the coffee tastes.
Have long, chatty catchups with friends on rainy days while you sip from narrow, thin-lipped rose chintz mugs. The delicate bone china doesn’t interfere with the thick, sugary richness of the Coffee Mate Cinnamon Vanilla creamer. It also doesn’t insulate the coffee, but you’ll drink it so fast you won’t notice.
Regular coffee mugs. You know exactly which ones they are, the “World’s Best Boss” mugs of the world—those, unsurprisingly, are for work. Whether you need to file some invoices or write a ton of notes to yourself because you started a newsletter thingy and you’re feeling a little behind, these mugs get it done. They are workhorses. A second acceptable use is weekend brunch, but only if every other mug is in the dishwasher.
Travel mugs are inarguably for road trips and for days in the office where you sigh and look at your coworker and say “whew what a day, am I right?” Then you make some joke about it only being Tuesday. Travel mugs are also a portkey to the past, reminding you of trudging across an autumn campus and the all-nighters you ceremoniously held in college. They are beautiful, and very important.
Giant mugs that require two hands for sipping are never for coffee. Only tea. Only herbal tea, at night before bed. They are far too big and your body can’t—are you listening, it CANNOT—handle that much caffeine. Plus, they make you feel small and cozy, like a child, which is a nice feeling before bed. Big ole mugs invite sweeter dreams than any other cup could ever...dream of.
Use the mugs that have a finger trap in lieu of a handle only for your enemies. These mugs have a specific set of skills—all designed to frustrate and make your sipping process most unenjoyable. If you’re going to poison someone, use these one-fingered mugs cautiously, since they’ll be a dead giveaway that something is not right here. You might want to use a bone china mug to throw them off the trail.
But mugs with no handles—THOSE are where it’s at. Those are the mugs you sit in your biggest chairs with your oldest friends and hug the mug close to your full, full heart as you laugh and heal in the presence of a love you lucked into.
Happy sipping <3
Next Steps: Drink a mug of water (if you pour it into your mug before coffee, you’ll have to drink it—or you’ll pour it out in your plants, if we’re being honest), well, and I guess don’t forget to water your plants.
The definitive guide to which coffee mug to use in any situation