Chances are, if you're a dedicated coffee and/or tea drinker, you also have all the things necessary to properly and serve it. Sometimes, the desire for the latest and greatest can lead to some interesting collections.
I have to hold myself back from purchasing every do-dad imaginable. Right now, I have an obsession for cups. Not mugs (shudder), but beautiful, tastefully designed cups for both tea and coffee. Of course, I would never drink tea out of a coffee mug and vice versa so that means I have to have two of everything, right?
Well, not quite. I try to keep the coffee cups separate from the tea cups so I can tell which is which, something that can get a little confusing if you haven't used a certain cup in a few months. My preference for both are the thinner shaped cups, since the liquid inside the cup tends to cool at a slower rate than in the fatter mugs (hence my shudders). It also has to be bone china because for me, it has the least effect on the final taste of the liquid. Yeah, I can taste the differences between cups - if you put tea in an earthenware mug and a bone china cup, it tastes completely different. There will be those who say all cups are the same and there is no difference but I seriously can taste a difference. Bone china and glass have no flavor (unless it's dirty!) so they're the best for my tasting preferences. Porcelain I will tolerate and while I like the look of earthenware and pottery, I buy them strictly for looks only. Oddly enough, I don't mind tea in a paper cup, even though I can taste the paper so I guess the taste doesn't bother me too much. The same can't be said for styrofoam and plastic is simply unacceptable. I've tried the stainless steel travel mugs - again, I get a taste off it that's simply unacceptable. If anyone knows of a Canadian or US source of bone china travel mugs, please let me know!
Right now, I'm using Christmas bone china cups for my tea and my decaf coffee. And once the season is over, I'll put them away and take out a whole new set of wintery cups. Or, now that it looks like the snow is staying, there's a chance the spring cups will be coming out earlier than expected.
So what type of cup do you use? Do you have seasonal cups?
I generally use whatever is clean. LOL...I can feel you shuddering now.:-)I have been using a rather large snow man mug for both tea and cocoa lately.I do not like coffee...Blessings~Sharon
ReplyDeleteActually I'm not shuddering since it's tea and cocoa - if it was tea and coffee, I would be since the coffee oils never leave the surface of a cup, therefore contaminating it for tea. I do like the sound of that mug though - don't have a snowman mug .... yet.
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