On our radar: Dualit cups

Dualit cups

Hot off the press! These pretty Dualit cups are a brand new product that’s on our radar this week. They’re really tactile, with their vertical fluting echoing the grooves found on the company’s compostable coffee pods.

No matter your favourite type of coffee, the bone china cups are available in four different sizes; from smallest to largest – espresso, doppio, cappuccino and latte. Each cup comes with a snug-fitting saucer for those unexpected little spills.

They’re safe for putting in both the microwave and dishwasher.

BUY THEM HERE

Price Points: Travel mugs

Travel mugs | H is for Home

Up until a couple of weeks before lock-down, we’d been making regular trips between Mid-Wales and Northern England. We were taking stock to our antique centre space in Hebden Bridge and returning a couple of days later with a carload of household items from storage. Moving house has been taking us quite a while!

We tend to stop for a break half-way, which often includes coffee and a pastry. If we’re supplying our own coffee, then we’ve taken to making it there on the spot – using a flask of boiling water and one of those instant cappuccino or flat white sachets. We much prefer it to coffee that was made a few hours in advance and kept warm in a flask. It doesn’t have that distinctive ‘plastic-y’ taste…. and those tiny flask cups aren’t great either. We brew ours in decent sized travel mugs. There’s none of that unpleasant after-taste – they’re more robust and the coffee stays warmer for longer.

They come in a variety of sizes and materials to suit your requirements. Here are three examples that caught our eye.

  1. New Bone China travel mugs: £8.78 each, Wayfair
  2. Stojo Biggie slate collapsible cup – 470ml: £15.00, Argos
  3. Alessi Caffa Travel Mug, 400ml, brown: £35.00, John Lewis

shop travel mugs

Some of the links on our blog are affiliate links. We may receive a small commission - at no cost to you - if you click through and make a purchase.
Prices & links correct at time of publication.

Alessi Caffa Travel Mug, 400ml, brown
Alessi Caffa Travel Mug, 400ml, brown
£35.00
Stojo Biggie slate collapsible cup – 470ml
Stojo Biggie slate collapsible cup – 470ml
£15.00
New Bone China travel mugs
New Bone China travel mugs
£8.78 each
Alessi Caffa Travel Mug, 400ml, brown
Alessi Caffa Travel Mug, 400ml, brown
£35.00
Stojo Biggie slate collapsible cup – 470ml
Stojo Biggie slate collapsible cup – 470ml
£15.00
New Bone China travel mugs
New Bone China travel mugs
£8.78 each
Alessi Caffa Travel Mug, 400ml, brown
Alessi Caffa Travel Mug, 400ml, brown
£35.00
Stojo Biggie slate collapsible cup – 470ml
Stojo Biggie slate collapsible cup – 470ml
£15.00
New Bone China travel mugs
New Bone China travel mugs
£8.78 each
Alessi Caffa Travel Mug, 400ml, brown
Alessi Caffa Travel Mug, 400ml, brown
£35.00
Stojo Biggie slate collapsible cup – 470ml
Stojo Biggie slate collapsible cup – 470ml
£15.00
New Bone China travel mugs
New Bone China travel mugs
£8.78 each
Alessi Caffa Travel Mug, 400ml, brown
Alessi Caffa Travel Mug, 400ml, brown
£35.00
Stojo Biggie slate collapsible cup – 470ml
Stojo Biggie slate collapsible cup – 470ml
£15.00
New Bone China travel mugs
New Bone China travel mugs
£8.78 each

Hornsea horoscopes

Vintage horoscope mugs designed by John Clappison for Hornsea Pottery | H is for Home

We had a wonderful start to the week on the buying front – acquiring a small collection of these zodiac/horoscope mugs on Monday morning.

Stack of vintage horoscope mugs designed by John Clappison for Hornsea Pottery | H is for Home

They were designed by John Clappison for Hornsea Pottery in the 1970s. His vintage pieces are becoming harder and harder to find – so getting hold of a few together was just great.

Vintage horoscope mugs designed by John Clappison for Hornsea Pottery | H is for Home

Each mug features the zodiac symbol – and character traits for that star sign incorporated into newsprint lettering. As with most of his designs, they’re fabulous. They look even better when grouped together, so it’s tempting to hunt down all twelve now that we have a few!

Vintage Aries mug designed by John Clappison for Hornsea Pottery | H is for Home Vintage Virgo mug designed by John Clappison for Hornsea Pottery | H is for Home
Vintage Scorpio mug designed by John Clappison for Hornsea Pottery | H is for Home Vintage Pisces mug designed by John Clappison for Hornsea Pottery | H is for Home

Justin has just read his Aries traits – positive, enthusiastic, energetic, impulsive, enterprising, lively, the pioneer… Is he sure his birthday’s in April?!

Price Points: Moscow Mule mugs

Moscow Mule mugs

Moscow Mule – it sounds so Cold War Soviet Union. In fact, the cocktail was invented in the early 1940s by two American drinks distributors.

On 28 July 1948, it was reported in the New York Herald Tribune:

“The mule was born in Manhattan but ‘stalled’ on the West Coast for the duration. The birthplace of ‘Little Moscow’ was in New York’s Chatham Hotel. That was back in 1941 when the first carload of Jack Morgan’s Cock ‘n’ Bull ginger beer was railing over the plains to give New Yorkers a happy surprise. Here was ginger beer in crockery bottles tasting exactly like that of old England.”

“Three friends were in the Chatham bar, one John A. Morgan, known as Jack, president of Cock ‘n’ Bull Products and owner of the Hollywood Cock ‘n’ Bull Restaurant; one was John G. Martin, president of G. F. Heublein Brothers, Inc. of Hartford, Conn., and the third was Rudolph Kunett, president of the Pierre Smirnoff, Heublein’s vodka division. As Jack Morgan tells it, ‘We three were quaffing a slug, nibbling an hors d’oeuvre and shoving toward inventive genius.’ Martin and Kunett had their minds on their vodka and wondered what would happen if a two-ounce shot joined with Morgan’s ginger beer and the squeeze of a lime. Ice was ordered, limes procured, mugs ushered in and the concoction put together. Cups were raised, the men counted five and down went the first taste. It was good. It lifted the spirit to adventure. Four or five later the mixture was christened the Moscow Mule… and for a number of obvious reasons. “

The exact reason why Moscow Mules are traditionally drunk out of copper mugs is a bit lost in time. However, the material certainly suits this cocktail – the metal keeps the drink colder for longer, necessitating less ice. And it apparently makes the acidic lime taste sharper.

I’d happily quaff Moscow Mules from any of three of the mug collections above. But I’d choose the hammered version over the other two. Firstly, I like my mugs with a handle – there are no freezing (or burning, if glugging Glühwein) fingers to contend with. Additionally, I know it goes against what I’ve just said, but the hammered body is so tactile…

  1. Copper Moscow Mule mugs (set of 4): $63, Food52
  2. Set of 6 pure hammered copper Moscow Mule mugs: £83.25, Amazon
  3. Tom Dixon Plum Moscow Mule glasses, set of 2: £55, John Lewis