Hammershøi mug, thermos mug or coffee cup: which suits your coffee?
Mug 33 cl for long filter coffee you may reheat, thermos mug 20 cl for slow coffee at a desk, cup with saucer 25 cl for milk coffee at the table.
Short answer: For a long filter coffee at the table, take the Hammershøi Mug 33 cl: it holds the most, has a handle and can go in the microwave. If your coffee travels to a desk and gets drunk slowly, the 20 cl thermos mug is the one meant for slow drinking, but it cannot be reheated. The 25 cl cup with saucer is for coffee you sit down with, especially milk drinks.
All three are porcelain, all three are by Hans-Christian Bauer for Kähler, and all three carry the same horizontal grooves. So the choice is not about style. It is about how much coffee you pour, where you drink it and how fast.
The three pieces in numbers
We added two columns of our own to the product figures: weight per centilitre held, and weight when full.
| Mug 33 cl | Thermos mug 20 cl | Cup with saucer 25 cl | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity | 33 cl | 20 cl | 25 cl |
| Form | Tall, with handle | Handleless beaker | Low, wide cup on a saucer |
| Height | 10 cm | 8 cm | 6.5 cm with saucer |
| Width | 9 cm body, 12.5 cm with handle | 9 cm | 15 cm saucer |
| Weight empty | 280 g | 240 g | 340 g with saucer |
| Grams per cl held | 8.5 | 12 | 13.6 |
| Weight full | about 610 g | about 440 g | about 590 g with saucer |
| Dishwasher / microwave | Yes / yes | Yes / no | Yes / yes |
| Colours | White, Anthracite grey, Indigo | White | White |
| Best for | Long filter coffee, big milk coffee | Slow coffee away from the kitchen | Cappuccino or flat white at the table |
The grams per centilitre column is where the thermos shows itself. It is only 40 g lighter than the mug yet holds 13 cl less, so it carries far more porcelain per centilitre than the mug. Only the cup, weighed together with its saucer, is heavier for what it holds. The product data gives no construction detail that explains the gap. The full weights assume the cups are filled to their listed capacity.
Mug 33 cl: the long coffee and the second pour
A typical filter coffee or a large milk coffee comes to roughly 25 to 30 cl. The Hammershøi Mug 33 cl takes that with 3 to 8 cl to spare, the margin you need to walk from the coffee maker to the table without slopping. Neither the 20 cl thermos mug nor the 25 cl cup takes that pour.
It is the tallest of the three at 10 cm, and the narrow 9 cm body means coffee loses heat mainly through a small surface at the top. Being microwave safe matters more than it sounds: if you are the sort of person who forgets a half-full mug, you can warm it again.
It is also the only one of the three in colours, so a household of three can each have their own glaze.
Thermos mug 20 cl: coffee that leaves the kitchen
The Hammershøi Thermos mug 20 cl has no handle; you hold it by the body. It is sold as a thermos mug, meant for coffee that is drunk slowly: taken to a desk, a balcony or a sofa and finished over half an hour.
Two limits to plan around. First, 20 cl is a regular cup of black coffee or a flat white, not a long filter coffee with room for milk. Second, it is not microwave safe, so it suits people who drink their coffee before it cools rather than those who reheat. Plan around both.
At 8 cm tall and 9 cm across it is also the most compact of the three, the one that fits beside a laptop without a handle sticking out towards an elbow.
Cup with saucer 25 cl: the coffee you sit down for
The Hammershøi Coffee cup with matching saucer 25 cl is low and open, only 6.5 cm high including the saucer. A wide mouth shows off milk foam and lets a cappuccino or flat white cool to drinking temperature quickly. Good at a breakfast table, less good at a desk.
The 15 cm saucer is the space question. On a small café table or a tray, plan 15 cm per person rather than the 9 to 12.5 cm a mug needs. In return the saucer gives the spoon and a biscuit somewhere to go, and it makes the cup the obvious choice when guests come for coffee.
Which one we would choose
- One filter coffee or a big milk coffee each morning, at home: the mug. It is the only one with room for 25 to 30 cl plus a safe margin, and it can be reheated.
- Coffee carried to a desk and sipped for half an hour: the thermos mug, provided a 20 cl serving is enough and you do not use the microwave.
- Cappuccino, flat white or coffee with guests at the table: the cup with saucer. The wide cup suits foam, and the saucer suits company.
- Buying one piece as a gift without knowing the person's habits: the mug, because it handles the widest range of drinks and is the only one you can choose in a colour.
If we could keep only one in our own kitchen, it would be the mug in Anthracite grey. It covers the most coffee habits, and the darker glaze makes the grooves easier to read. Add the cup with saucer later when you start serving coffee to other people, and the thermos only if you really do drink at a desk.
The grooves come from the work of Svend Hammershøi, the ceramicist who worked at Kähler in the early 1900s, which is why the same relief runs across the whole series, vases included. If you are matching the table to flowers, our piece on Hammershøi and Omaggio vases covers that side. The rest of the Hammershøi series sits in the Kähler collection.
