Coffee

Coffee is a fairly ‘big thing’ in our family. As architecture students, we would work long hours making models for different assignments, and were rather reliant on strong black coffee to keep us going. Now we are older, with entrenched coffee habits, we focused on the experience of the perfect cup for that perfect coffee. What are the textures, feel, colours that celebrate this amazing beverage - how can we create great ‘keep cups’ that travel well and have a tactile quality to them. Cue a mini design series working through those ‘feel good’ proportions - and trying to get the lids to fit!

We love the variation of the ‘Shino’ type glazes, they reveal the grog in the clay, and highlight the handmade throwing lines that show you this was created by fingertips. A little bit of honed and burnished exposed clay on the outside of the cup has a tactile feel to it (some love that, some definitely don’t), but used selectively it also stimulates the senses and provides a good grip surface if you are transporting your vessel anywhere, and contrasts nicely with a glazed interior. The focus of the lid for us was less about drinking through the top (we take the lid off typically anyway), but just sealing it so you didn’t splash yourself with your hot beverage. To this extent we just worked through the different shrinkage rates of clay to get to the point where we could consistently create the correct dimension so it would fit snugly (this sounds easy when you are a pro - but it’s not when you are a beginner!).

Some of the vessels fit into the curve of the palm, others take on a more triangular form that fits ones grasp easily. I think we all have different preferences, but it’s interesting to see which ones get the most use at different times of the day. I love the gentle softly curved honed vessels for morning coffee, and the angular textured vessels for afternoon coffee …. but then that’s just me.

After lockdown we will deliver some samples to Regiment Coffee on Kepa Road in Orakei - so you can try them out - let us know what your favourites are!