My Favourite Mug

I don’t have a lot of favourite things. When somebody asks me about my favourite movie or my favourite musician, I tend to struggle to answer. There are so many of them, and I feel differently about them depending on my mood or what I’ve been thinking about as of late. I tend to give a generic answer or change the topic. It is simply too hard to pick. I should probably have a rehearsed answer where I just list ones I like, but I haven’t taken the time to do that. It seems limiting to me. Say I picked, for example, celebrated director X. I don’t want to be perceived as an X-liking kind of guy. I like to leave open the possibility of changing my mind, and expressing such a strong predilection for something means it is harder to take it back later, if that’s how one feels like. I just don’t have such clear cut preferences for most things. When it comes to mugs, however. I do have a preference.

My favourite mug is this one. It’s a ceramic mug I picked up at a local street market in Madrid. I believe it is hand made. It’s a bit taller than the average mug, and the circumference at the top is a bit narrower. It’s a nice shade of green, with gloopy, irregular stains of different densities. It has a glazed, shiny finish, and plenty of imperfections, big and small. On the inside, it has a sort of circle at the bottom and slight ripples coming up on the sides, like tiny waves.

The handle is quite thick and long, almost reaching the bottom of the cup. This means I can easily get two fingers through the handle and a third one below for a tight, comfortable and substantial grip. When the mug contains really hot liquid, I can still manoeuvre it confidently with the handle, never having to come into contact with the body of the cup. The thick ceramic means the outside of the cup is never all that hot, anyway. The extra height means I can also grip it on the side and make full contact with my whole hand. It is weightier than other cups, and this added to the slightly bigger proportions means that whether it is cold or hot, full or empty, it always feels substantial, safe and pleasant to hold.

Thanks to the material and the narrower circumference, hot liquids take longer to cool down, as there is less liquid exposed to room temperature. At least that’s what I think, I haven’t done extensive testing on the matter. I like to drink my coffee black with a drop of water, and I like to take my sweet time drinking it, when I have the opportunity. Having a little extra longevity for hot beverages is a nice feature. Still, it is undeniable that a big part of its appeal, for me, is the finish. Whereas the paint job and shape is irregular and rough, the glaze makes everything shiny and smooth to the touch. When you see it in a cupboard or a drawer it looks to be a plain dark green, but when the morning sun shines on it, it reveals entire universes of complexity. Looking at it up close, the variations in the shades of green look like endless landscapes made of forests and grasslands. As you can see in the pictures, it catches the light beautifully. To me, it evokes simultaneously a feeling of safety and power, like an oasis after a long walk in the desert, as well as an aura of magic and possibility.

I know this is my favourite mug because in the morning, even if I am in a rush while making a coffee, I’ll look out for it. If it needs to be cleaned, I’ll clean it rather than get a different one. If I have friends around and I’m serving a beverage, I’ll make sure I serve myself with this one. If I can’t find it, I’m disappointed. It’s my favourite mug.

It is not a perfect cup, however. There is a little debris near the inside of the lip area, on the left of the handle. I’m not sure if it is a bit of wood or something else, but it must have fallen on it before the glazing process. It looks like you should be able to scratch it or polish it off, but no, it is deep in there. And yes, sometimes it is noticeable when drinking from it. But you know what? I like it. It makes me feel like a regular person made this mug. A master artisan, without a doubt, but one who can make small mistakes, and who is okay with it. Perfection used to be the sign of mastery, but now it is the sign of artificiality. If you showed me a perfect cup and you told me a master artisan made it, I would be extremely suspicious I was being conned.

I own many other cups, and although they are clearly the product of large scale manufacturing, some of them try to approximate this handmade look. I have even seen really irregular ones sold in large retail stores (they were all irregular in the exact same way), so corporations are clearly catching on to this reality. In an ideal world, all my cups would be like this green one. Actually, in an ideal world I would have made all my cups myself. But that is not really practical, at least for now. Besides, I like that this one mug stands out, and I believe it likes it too. I’m sure it makes it feel special.