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No stir stick needed.
(Credit: Think Geek)After all the shopping and cooking and traveling, the end of the year can be a real time crunch, and it's easy to overlook the little day-to-day things we regularly attend to without a second thought. Thankfully, when it comes to the most basic consumables of our daily lives (coffee), there is a product designed to help those of us who need to save every minute (or are incredibly absent-minded).
The Self-Stirring Mug from Think Geek can help us shave precious seconds off of our daily routine. Powered by two AAA batteries installed in the base, the mug accomplishes this amazing time-saving trick with the press of a button. A fast-moving motor installed in the base spins a small mechanism, creating a whirlwind of your favorite beverage. No matter how you dress up your coffee, this fun little gadget will give you the time (not to mention the caffeine boost) to get through your day--or at least save you from using up a stir stick.
It seems like unusual coffee mugs are a good fallback plan if you can't think of a holiday gift, but even among all those unique mugs that get given out every year, the Link Mugs stand out. The ceramic coffee mugs are white and generally look like typical mugs, except for the sides, near the base. Each coffee mug in the set of three links together by way of a plus-shaped plug on one side of each mug and a corresponding socket on the other. Link your mugs together and you can carry them all over your home or office without needing to worry about spilling hot tea or coffee on yourself or on the floor.
The Link Mugs were designed by Johnathan Aspinall, with the intention of solving how one person can carry several mugs at once without resorting to a tray. The design is based of a standard builders mug. The mugs are approximately 3.75 inches tall, with a diameter of about 3.25 inches. The Link Mugs come packaged in a gift box that includes instructions on how to connect the mugs, making them a useful choice for holiday present. The set is priced at approximately $54.
Anamorphosis refers to a distorted image that only appears normal when reflected from a special device--generally a cylinder with a highly reflective surface placed the in the center of a painting lying face up. This visual play, popular in 18th century Europe, has been modernized in the Anamorphic Cup, created by American-born designer Ross McBride, now living in Tokyo.
The cup is stainless steel with a polished mirror finish. Its porcelain saucer is printed with a distorted image. Separately, the cup and saucer are ordinary--an unlikely match, even. But put them together, and that indecipherable graphic is suddenly reflected in the surface of the cup to reveal a word--coffee, tea, his, hers, and so on.
The cups are great conversation pieces--but a little hard to track down in the States. You can, however, find them abroad, or contact the manufacturer directly for a special order.
For more than 60 years, Germany's Fraunhofer Institute has promoted and undertaken "applied research...of wide benefit to society as a whole," according to its mission statement. That's why it's not at all surprising to hear that they recently came up with the Perfect Coffee Mug, a temperature-regulating drinking receptacle that keeps coffee at the ideal drinking temperature for up to 30 minutes.
The mug uses phase change material (PCM)--that's a substance with a high heat of fusion that can store and release energy (heat) over time. By adjusting the amount of PCM in a given object, you can effectively set the temperature you want to maintain. The Perfect Coffee Mug is set to about 136 degrees Fahrenheit.
Here's how it all goes down: you brew your coffee, optimally at 200 degrees Fahrenheit and pour it into your mug. Maybe you lose a few degrees in the pouring, but you're still probably be looking at around 195 degrees, what we in the science biz call "tongue-scaldingly hot." So your mug absorbs that extra 60 or so degrees and gives it back slowly, as your coffee cools, to maintain its ideal temperature of 136 degrees.
I, personally, can think of nothing that serves society better. When these mugs hit my local Target, you can bet I'll buy a bunch.
I don't even start thinking about what I'm doing on a given day until I have a little caffeine in my system. The makers of Write-On Glassware have realized I'm not the only one and have come up with a coffee mug that you write on as you sip your morning brew. They also offer a tumbler--in case your morning routine focuses more on juice than on coffee or tea.
Both are glass with a special surface added on the outside. The surface comes preprinted with lines and times for a schedule, and you can write on it with just about any pencil. When you're done, just erase your notes. It does seem that pencil is the only recommended writing tool for the mug--pens and markers aren't as simple to erase. The Write-On Glassware comes with a miniature pencil.
The Write-On Glassware is ideal for notetaking: it's much harder to misplace than a scrap of paper. It appears that the mug is hand-wash only, but the glass surface is easy to clean. The mug is 3 inches by 3.5 inches, while the tumbler is 3 inches by 6 inches. Both are priced at $16.
I spend more time than I would like shuttling children around town to school, lessons, play dates, speech therapy, and other fun engagements. I've heard this crazy rumor that there are people who actually work outside their homes and still have to drive to a separate location every day, too. So it seems that a lot of us find ourselves on the go quite a bit. And if you need a coffee fix as badly as I do, you know that you need an on-the-go solution.
The Brugo travel mug, featured in the December issue of Self Magazine, claims to solve the dilemma that has plagued coffee drinkers for years. You pour the coffee into your travel mug, hop in the car, and take a sip, only to scald your tongue beyond any ability to taste.
The Brugo mug features a "tip and cool" setting that lets you tip the cup away from you for about two seconds and then moves about a sip's worth of coffee into a cooling chamber. Then you can drink it at a more palatable temperature, while the rest of your coffee stays hot and delicious.
Reviews at Amazon are mixed, with a trend towards lower scores. Users say the cup leaks during travel, and that the overall window for hot coffee is shorter than with other mugs. But the mug does come in a variety of bright colors, so even if you're sipping cold coffee, you can look pretty fashionable.
Ever get your coffee mug mixed up with the guy in the next cubicle? Maybe it would be easier to tell your mugs apart if they were customized. The House of Harriet line of personalized mugs is unique: Harriet Damave draws portraits on the mugs she sells. You can even arrange for a face other than your own to be emblazoned on your cup: Damave works from photographs or descriptions of characteristics. She can even do pets.
Damave's usable artwork is food safe: she glazes and fires the cups herself and makes sure that all glazes melt completely. These cups are dishwasher safe, scratch resistant, and can even be used in the microwave. Customers have the choice of an earthenware or porcelain cup, as well as the option of a gift box.
For a custom House of Harriet mug, the price is $55 plus shipping. Because Damave is based in the Netherlands, shipping to Europe is less expensive than to the U.S. Damave also sells a number of designs that, while they aren't so unique, are a little less expensive. It takes between four and five weeks from initial order to delivery, and Damave provides a sketch for clients' approval before she finalizes her designs.
As the weather gets colder, I practically live on soup and crackers. Of course, that means I wind up with cracker crumbs everywhere when I take the crackers along with my soup. The Soup and Cracker Mug offers an easy solution, though: along with a mug perfect for a cup of soup, it has a "sidecar" that's perfect for holding crackers. This glazed stoneware mug holds 1.5 cups of soup. Of course, it works perfectly for cocoa and cookies or other hot beverages and snacks. The sidecar will even catch all your drips after dunking.
The Soup and Cracker Mug makes it easier to handle hot liquids and snacks, and is a little more convenient if you have to add heating your soup up in the microwave to the equation. If you're planning to eat your soup in front of the television or the computer, you'll have one less dish to juggle, as well. Even better, you'll have one less dish to wash after you're done. The Soup and Cracker Mug is ideal for those quiet meals where you don't want to deal with much more than a hot mug of soup.
The mugs are sold in sets of two, priced at $14.98.
If you're a rabid coffee drinker like I am, then you're familiar with the one-time coffee stirring stick. Most convenience stores stick (no pun intended) to the plastic straw variety, while some bigger coffee corporations like Starbucks go for the wooden skinny popsicle sticks.
But have you ever stopped to think about how much wood and plastic is wasted in using the one-time swirlers? According to the Daily Green, a sort of consumer report site for green-lovers, we use and throw out more than 138 billion of the non-biodegradable plastic sticks every year. This comes out to (give or take) about 69,000,000 pounds of plastic. And even though the wooden stir sticks are biodegradable, that one-time, five-second stir doesn't seem to justify the loss of the tree that made it happen.
Some people suggest pouring in the milk and sugar before pouring in the coffee, so that the coffee will mix itself. This could work if you take your coffee with just milk or if you use just enough sugar to take the bite off your brew, but if you're the kind of person who likes a sweeter cup, then simply pouring the coffee last isn't going to be enough to avoid the sugar clump at the bottom of your cup.
Thankfully, Gevalia has made a cup that will save both your stirring arm and all of that plastic. This stir mug comes with a button on the handle that gently stirs your cup of joe, so you can avoid that sugary last sip without being wasteful. Worried about your coffee sloshing over the sides while you stir? The cup comes with a peekaboo lid, so that you can see when your brew is blended.
OK, so maybe a self-stirring cup is a bit overkill. But hey, at least those plastic stirring sticks can be saved and used for something better, like this chandelier by Studio Verissimo.
Say it with feeling, in cocoa or cinnamon
(Credit: LOOP Limited)
Face it: not everyone is capable of stunning latte art, but that doesn't have to stop us from having a bit of fun with our frothy beverages. We spotted these stainless steel cappuccino stencils on GadgetCandy and were immediately intrigued. Just set the disc atop your latte or cappuccino and sprinkle with cocoa, cinnamon, or another coffee topper for a quick decoration. Despite the cheesy clip-art design, we rather liked the idea of a quick way to fancy up our milky coffee drinks, so we Googled around and found these slightly more classy designs as well as this set of six stencils packaged in a round tin. Clearly the Brits are ahead of us on the coffee stencil front, because most of these links are to sites in the UK; you can find a few U.S. distributors listed on MySimon.
Floral patterns are so much more attractive than simple rings.
(Credit: Generate)Those who prefer an American-style cup of joe (or tea) can get arty with a Stamp Mug. The pricey ($59) vessel turns your java sloshes into lovely floral watermarks on your desk or papers. It would be a great way to give yourself and your coworkers something attractive to look at without, you know, actually cleaning.
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