I ordered my new keepcup online and it arrived last week. I had one already, but have decided lately I really want a LARGE coffee and so needed a proper large cup to match. I’m completely amused by Keepcup’s website where you can choose the colour of the cup, the band, the top and the plug. It’s a fabulously designed website and interface. Loads of entertainment. I highly recommend custom-designing your own and buying it!
I’m not sure why I ended up with this set of colours, perhaps my recent trip to Sweden?
The company, started in 2008 in Melbourne, has gone worldwide and is doing well, and my friend Leah spotted them on sale in Iceland!
I do understand that there is innovation here: it is marketed to match proper coffee machines and become a ‘barista standard reusable cup’, and certainly I never understood good coffee before arriving in Australia from Europe and Canada.
The particular mix of espresso and hot foamed milk done properly is found few other places (Italy has great espresso but they don’t do it like this; Canadian filter coffee is a different kettle of… coffee all together). Australians do seem to be exporting this style of coffee elsewhere…
So, these cups are aimed at ‘proper’ coffee (a latté or flat white perhaps). And they’re very attractive.
On the other hand, when I read their slogan of a ‘reuse revolution’, I despair what a short distance we seem to have come. I wish I had a photo of the plastic mugs we used to lug around at Trent University, with a clip attaching it to our backpacks. I think it was a collaboration with OPIRG, an environmental group, and peer presssure meant everybody had one. We used them for water and coffee and tea, and there was a nifty plastic top that fit snugly to ward off spillage and keep drinks hot. They were kind of ugly, but they worked. Over 20 years later, we’re still trying to get the masses to carry around keepcups and refillable water bottles and the waste continues to pile up around us.