At any given moment, your kitchen cabinets are likely housing at minimum one rogue coffee mug with which you have been peacefully cohabitating for years, but whose origins you can’t quite pinpoint. Perhaps it was left over from an old boyfriend. Perhaps it was a Secret Santa inheritance you never got around to re-gifting. Perhaps it bears the dishwasher-faded devotion to a university sports team, and you couldn’t bring yourself to hide it away. Whatever the case, it’s time for an upgrade; the holidays are right around the corner, and while you’re working through your gifting list, why not gift yourself a coffee station refresh?
Vogue’s Guide to the Best Coffee Mugs
Maybe it’s a mammoth vessel for your latte or maybe it’s a set of teeny espresso cups you can stack atop your coffee maker; whatever your platonic ideal of a mug is, we bet you can find it in our edit. Designed for form and functionality (we included some top picks for travel tumblers, too), these options suit a range of styles—and, in the spirit of the season, make excellent presents for the coffee lover on your list if you’d rather give something more permanent than a bag of roast beans and a certificate to their favorite coffee shop.
Ahead, 16 of the best coffee mugs for every kind of coffee drinker.
The Best Drip Coffee Mugs
Your favorite mug is built for volume—nothing below 250 ml, please. A diner mug is a classic choice, but for more personality, choose something colorful in stoneware, scalloped in terracotta clay, or hand-painted in porcelain. Tory Burch and Ginori 1735 make pieces that qualify as modern heirlooms, if you’re looking for something that can work as a wedding present.
The Best Cappuccino Cups
Something about sipping your morning coffee (or tea, or matcha, or any other hot beverage) from a cup with a saucer feels endlessly elegant. Crate Barrel’s bone china set is dishwasher-safe for easy clean-up, but if you’re looking to invest, this blue-and-white set featuring a hand-painted lily of the valley motif is timeless. And if you prefer a saucer-less approach—CB2’s squat mug is perfectly stackable.
The Best Espresso Cups
They’re chic, they’re tiny, they may just convince you to become an espresso drinker (or at least pretend to be one): These miniature mugs delight. The retro look of sets from Il Buco Vita and H&M will transform your kitchen into a Parisian bistrot. More contemporary sensibilities will love this Bauhaus-inspired duo from Copenhagen-based Louise Roe; it’s designed to match your chrome espresso machine.
The Best Travel Coffee Mugs
You may be able to justify a lot of things—a 6:00 a.m. call time, a multi-train subway commute—but a morning without a cup of coffee does not have to be one of them. Investing in a travel mug is a calculated move in both caffeination and sustainability: Why traffic in to-go cups or risk a burnt drip when you’ve already perfected your ideal ratio of coffee to milk? Double-walled, vacuum-insulated construction, leakproof seals, and durable materials (Kinto’s stainless steel tumbler can withstand a lot) keep your coffee warm for hours on end.
