After much searching of supermarket aisles, I finally found the cup of my dreams and proceeded to purchase it.
Brand: "Trudeau" (relation to the Canadian prime minister? who knows?)
Cost: Around $7 USD
Where: Random supermarket in L.A.
So what makes this particular mug so appealing?
Here are my favourite features:
- Cheap. So probably easy to replace if lost, assuming I can purchase it online.
- Light. Made of all plastic, definitely worth its weight.
- Large. Can hold enough coffee to last me a day, which is convenient.
- Cylindrical. Easily fits in the strap on the side of my backpack.
- Thermal. Keeps contents hot for at least 2 hours, which is all I need.
- Spill-proof. Sturdy screw-on lid and open/close mechanism for drinking part.
- Simple construction. Easy to clean.
- Microwaveable! Thus, it can double as a food or soup container, when the only source of heat is a microwave oven. Or I can just re-heat my coffee in a microwave! *
This mug has been an absolute pleasure to use.
This morning I went to the kitchen at my AirBnB, put a pot of water on the stove, threw in some ground coffee. Brought it to the boil, switched the stove off, waited 2-3 minutes for it to settle, then poured the brew straight into the mug and closed the lid. Then I just threw the grounds in the bin and washed up the pot in the sink and was all done.
Bam! 5 minutes of time + about 25c worth of ground coffee = coffee for the whole day.
That's exactly a quarter of the price of a $1 7-Eleven coffee and an even smaller fraction of the price at your typical coffee shop.
You can do the math and figure out how quickly this mug will pay for itself!