► Anti-spill mug with ‘bi-stable valve’ design
► Claims to retain 95% of its contents
► Sounds like a challenge to us…
Take-away coffee is now seriously big business and making the most of this hot beverage-boom is an equally fast-moving mug industry.
Want to drink out of a camera lens? There’s a mug for that. Stir your tea for you? There’s a mug for that. Need a heat-reactive paint-job to show you when your drink is at the right temperature like astronauts (probably) use? Oh yes, there’s a mug for that.
But all this frappuccino frippery pales into insignificance when compared with the advances made in the arena of safety. Ask yourself: what is my mug doing to protect my precious hands or car interior from boiling liquid? If the answer is nothing, read on.
What’s wrong with my ‘World’s Best Golfer’ mug?
China cups were fine when people had time to sit down and drink tea or coffee at their leisure, but things have changed – consuming a hot drink is no longer your primary focus, it’s something you do mindlessly while replying to an email or waiting at a traffic light.
You’d be mad to take a traditional mug into a moving car. It wouldn’t fit in the cup-holder for a start, and coffee would go everywhere. And how many times must you risk being scalded or scolded after writing-off another keyboard before you’ll accept that even when stationary, the cup just isn’t up to the job anymore?
In the past, only solution to these problems would be a travel mug – one of those adult sippy-cups with a screw on lid and tiny spout that makes your coffee taste like hot plastic. No thanks.
Enter the Magicup
This is a mug designed specifically for a mobile generation. For people who demand more from their mug. Welcome to mug 2.0.
The packaging is covered in images of lesser-cups falling over and pitifully surrendering their precious liquid while the Magicup – with its special bi-stable valve – retains up to 95 percent of its contents. It has a round opening so you can drink from any part of the rim like normal too.
In addition the design is claimed to allow 100% of the beverage’s aroma to find its way to your nose, and as Magicup reckons this accounts for 80% of your sense of taste, that’s an important feature.
We tested it in the CAR office and found a toppled Magicup would shed barely a drop on our pristine white desks – and it tasted like a proper brew. Of course the real benefit came while on the move, where the Magicup happily kept the centre consoles of various press cars completely coffee-free.
Plus, you can forget your Grandad’s Thermos, the Magicup is double-insulated to ensure your drink stays hot. It also goes in the dishwasher.
Verdict
Like all good problem-solving design this mug is brilliantly simple and doesn’t require any instruction to use. You just fill it up and drink as normal. The only slight hiccup is the price – £19.99 – which is a lot considering there are cheaper insulated mugs on the market (albeit ones that don’t deliver the same amount of aroma, supposedly).
So if you’d rather enjoy the smell of hot coffee coming from your mug than your shirt and trousers, don’t hesitate.