The Ember Mug, however, stayed at my preferred 135° for nearly two hours. It needed to be rewarmed after half an hour. When put to the test, coffee in one of my regular ol' mugs dropped 5 degrees every 4 minutes. When my mug is powered on, it flashes a cerulean hue.

The most fun light, though, is the personalized color users can choose in the app. It communicates through a small light at the base-a solid white light means that the temperature has been reached red and green lights indicate the battery level. It knows when liquid is inside and will enter sleep mode when its empty. And my afternoon slump is cured with a cup of Earl grey-the Ember app sets a timer for optimal steeping, and I get a ping on my Apple Watch when it’s ready. I can get through my inbox at my desk in the morning without having to make multiple trips to the kitchen to swap out cold coffee for a new cup. and it will hold six ounces of flat-white just as well as the Cup.I brought my Ember-and my futuristic lifestyle-to the office. It holds enough coffee to justify its existence, it works wonderfully. For the rest of us, the $150 14-oz Ember Mug (which, for what it's worth, is frequently discounted to $130) is truly the perfect Ember product. If you're the niche coffee drinker who prizes the aesthetic aspects of making an espresso-based drink and takes more than a few minutes to drink it and you have no interest in using your three-figure vessel for drip coffee or travel, the Cup is for you. Worst case, thousands of well-intentioned grandmothers are lured into buying this thing as a gift because of the savings when, for $30 more, they could give something truly excellent. Initial reviews of the original Ember Mug often took on the thesis of 'It's so expensive, but it turns out it's really useful and great.' The Cup takes all that's good about Ember's technology and - in bringing it to a more approachable price - turns it into a tchotchke. Henry Phillips The Ember Cup: The Verdict But why not just get an excellent latte cup - like these fantastic, $10 Acmes - and call it a day? There may be an argument for an Ember power user with a big mug for drip and a little cup for lattes. In my week of testing, I couldn't find a single use case where the Cup did better than the Mug, and there are many situations where having an extra four-to-eight ounces to play with would've been welcome. That's not quite fair, since the Cup comes in at a slightly more palatable $100 price, but I can't help but wonder why you wouldn't spend the extra money for an infinitely better product. What does the six-ounce Ember Cup do that the 10- or 14-ounce Ember Mug doesn't? Nothing. What's Not Good About The Ember Cup How slowly do you drink your coffee?Įlephant in the room time. As a fringe benefit, it uses the same charging coaster as the 10- and 14-oz mugs, so you could use them interchangeably. After a week of daintily sipping 135-degree Fahrenheit cortados, lattes and milky coffee, I regret to inform you, that while the unalloyed dunking-on is not strictly warranted, it's still tough to recommend the baby Ember.Īny Ember Mug or Cup shines with drinks where you have to add cold milk to hot coffee, but for espresso drinks where you're dealing with relatively small quantities of liquid that can get cold quite quickly, the Cup allowed me to take a bit longer to drink my morning latte instead of my normal routine of gulping it down like a madman once it's cooled to the right temperature. Sensing I was about to go down a deep hole of speculative hater-ism, I figured it was time to get an Ember Cup to test.

How long could it possibly take to consume six ounces of coffee? Why not spend the extra $30 and get the 10-oz mug? Immediately upon learning about Ember's new Cup, questions arose. The Travel Mug and the more sedentary Mug and Mug 2 (which we reviewed last year) have been staples oF coffee lovers' wish lists because of their noble purpose - keeping coffee at just the right temperature for well over an hour - and their serious prices of $130 and up.Įmber has so far offered 10, 12, and 14-oz sizes - but they recently introduced the Ember Cup, a petite, 6-oz version made for smaller espresso drinks like lattes, cappuccinos, and cortados that retails for a slightly more approachable starting price of $100. In the decade or so since they launched their first app-controlled, heated travel mug, Ember has quickly become the iPhone of coffee mugs.

Ember travel mug