Level up your coffee and lunch breaks with ceramics

Did you know that whether you're a self-professed coffee snob or you’re easily pleased with an at-home brew and meal prepped lunch - everything tastes better in ceramics?! 

Here's why:

1 The Neutrality Of Ceramics

• Ceramics neither absorb nor impart flavour. They are a neutral material that won’t affect flavour by absorbing your drink or meal’s natural flavour notes or adding its own. 

• Our sense of taste is linked to our sense of smell. Ceramics have no scent, ensuring your coffee or meal is unaffected by its vessel.

3 Temperature

• As coffee cools, it undergoes chemical changes that affect its flavour profile. Your morning cup is composed of a whopping 1000 aroma compounds that can be both smelled and tasted! Coffee is ideally enjoyed at temperatures between 70ºC to 80ºC; below this, the scents and flavours diminish. Coffee’s acidity also becomes more pronounced at lower temperatures. Ceramics ensure your cup is kept hotter for longer, preserving the flavour and scent compounds as well as keeping your coffee from becoming too acidic.
  
  
• Temperature doesn’t just affect coffee either. Our meals taste better when they're at an ideal heat, as a recent study on thermosensing receptors found. Ceramics have the ability to maintain heat and some (including our range!) can be used in the microwave, making them easy to use for reheating/warming.

2 Aesthetics

• We experience life through all five of our senses and studies have shown that the presentation of our food and beverages, as well as the environment within which we consume them, directly influences our enjoyment of them. How much better does your coffee taste when you’re indulging the creamy, foamy top from underneath a cosy knit blanket on a sleepy Sunday morning? Or from the coastal cafe you frequent with friends who make you smile till your cheeks hurt, where hours slip by under the warm gaze of wait staff who know your name and order?

• Texture, shape and weight are important aspects of the coffee or lunch break experience. One study even found that square, white plates made food taste less sweet than if the same dish was presented on a round plate! Just think about the way a decent cup hugs your palms back, how the smooth curves of the handle feel beneath your fingertips and how steadfastly it holds its place on the coffee table. We all know that a cuppa in a good mug is just better! Ceramics have a weight and texture to them wholly different to paper or plastic. There’s a comfortability in their sturdiness and functionality on an ergonomic level that ultimately improves their contents’ taste.

• Colour also influences our perception of taste - which likely explains why we defend our claim to our favourite mugs at work or give them pride of place in cupboard shelves at home! Coffee served in white mugs has been reported to have a stronger taste than the same blend served in a clear one (which added to the perceived sweetness). Ceramics can be glazed in a variety of colours that enhance our food and beverage’s flavour when compared to generic takeaway plastic or paper container hues. Our range of glazes was designed to ensure you can find one you’ll love savouring every sip from!
  
  

How Do Other Materials Stack Up? 

• Paper vessels: When heated, begin to smell, affecting taste. They're also poor retainers of heat, cooling your coffee (damaging the ideal flavour compounds as well as increasing acidity) and food (a bowl of cold carbonara never quite cuts it). 

• Plastic vessels: They are slightly porous and absorb both smell and flavour. Plastics may also leach tiny microplastics and chemical toxins into your cup, affecting both the taste and your overall health. The waxy, plastic resin coating on the interior of paper cups may also create a film (often invisible to the naked eye) on the top of your coffee which is both hazardous and a flavour killer! Hard pass! 

• Stainless steel vessels: Those 1,000 compounds in coffee that make your blend its dreamy, aromatic self can react oddly when left to sit in metal vessels (they pass very briefly through metal coffee filters, making it unlikely they are affected during filtering in case you coffee aficionados were worried!). Not to mention, cheaply made stainless steel cups and containers may have treatments that wash from the metal into your food and drink over time, affecting the taste and posing health risks. Unless your stainless steel cup is double-walled, the heat from your coffee will also be pulled from the liquid into the cup itself, leaving the vessel hot and your drink cold - which as we know affects the flavour!

• Glass: Glass has the same neutrality as ceramic, but it doesn't retain heat as well or for as long. Ceramics may also be lighter and prettier to look at to boot - thanks to their variety of shapes and glazes!
  

Ceramic coffee cups and tableware influence our overall experience of our drinks and meals by appealing to all five of our senses. The neutrality of ceramics as a material means your home creations or takeaway treats aren’t affected by a flavour leaching, or absorption of flavour or scent into the vessel's walls (as can be the case with other paper, plastic and metals). The weight, shape, texture and variety of colours that ceramics have give them a comforting, familiar feel unique to ceramics. Alongside aesthetics and taste, the functionality in their ability to maintain temperature makes ceramics an ideal choice.