Certain people with an eye for compliments toward actors might say, "I could listen to that person read the phone book." It means the actor's significant talent could elevate bog-basic words to artistic heights that most normies wouldn't believe. I've heard people say this of folks such as Daniel Day Lewis or Meryl Streep. They're such excellent vessels for their craft that they become a rising tide, lifting all around them.
The Muji Cafe Au Lait Cup 495ML is the Daniel Day Lewis of coffee cups. It is the best coffee cup mankind has put forth. Its dimensions are dia 10.6 x 8.1 cm tall and its had more years of schooling in coffee craftsmanship than most podiatrists spend studying feet. That joke contains such hyperbole that I hope any podiatrists reading don't feel jilted. I am, of course, kidding when making such a comparison.
Then again, what if I'm not?
Why do we accept bad coffee?
What you need to understand is that the American style of coffee consumption stands shoulder to shoulder with an undergraduate sophomore discovering craft beer for the first time. Wow, there I go with another schooling joke! Guess I'm feeling introspective.
As for the comparison, college sophomores, like a pedestrian coffee drinker, quite frankly don't know what they're doing. Send yourself back (or forward!) in time. It's the fall of your second year of undergraduate study. You're at a party. It isn't too crowded. You're having a decent, audible conversation. Maybe you know he person you're speaking with, maybe you don't, it isn't important. You drink a decent beer for the first time. You recognize there's something to be tasted and learned, whether in beer, coffee, or any involved fine dining experience. Polite society has trained you to avoid becoming that individualist guy that openly declares over and over that you've run the numbers, done experiments, devoted some time, and discovered, yeah, most coffee is bad, and it's okay to develop individual taste.
At last, we arrive at the Muji Cafe Au Lait Cup 495ML. If this is the Daniel Day Lewis of coffee cups, then I can safely say that a Grande Sumatra Roast from your neighborhood Starbucks is the Chris Pratt of coffee cups.
(That's a pretty high compliment to Chris Pratt! He was a scene stealing utility player on Parks & Recreation. In fact, I feel that whole show would've fallen apart without his unassailable, endearing doofishness.)
The Muji Cafe Au Lait Cup 495ML is such a thoughtful bit of dishware though. As I mentioned before, it's a student of its own craft, so use your eyes and read these words: its craft is to make drinking coffee feel good.
How do you make coffee feel good?
Allow me to paraphrase from Muji's own about page. Muji is a Japanese company, whose name translates as "no-brand quality goods." Their products are rational, without being specifically minimalist in design. In such, they are simply empty vessels, "yielding the ultimate universality, embracing the feelings and thoughts of all people."
Whoa. Have you ever thought of your coffee cup to such a degree? These guys did.
In short, Muji creates product, including this Cafe Au Lait Cup 495ML, with the expressed, written purpose of inviting you to fit it into your own life, and into the lives of all other people on the planet, as you drink your coffee. Paydirt! Now the next question: how does this coffee cup create the optimal coffee drinking experience?
Use it and find out! Actually, no, first read about what I did. You're going to have to sit down and contemplate things for six hours after you read this. Get a blanket and go sit on the toilet, you live in your brain now. Once finished, you'll need to update your buying habits to accommodate your new life-design.
I'll speak it plain: This coffee cup knows exactly how long it should take you to drink its contents. It doesn't use an app. It doesn't weigh the pH balance of your brew. It doesn't take the beans' coarseness under consideration. It doesn't demand an internet addiction from you. It is simply designed knowing a few things:
- A cup of coffee's ideal temperature when it's freshly-served
- A cup of coffee's ideal size (in this case 495ML)
- A cup of coffee's weight when it is filled with 495ML
- 495ML of liquid balanced against the weight and thickness of the cup to release heat
- The required exposed surface area for the ideal cup of coffee to cool when served at room temperature
The cup literally knows how long it should take to comfortably cool its contents as you drink. It's lightweight when it's empty. Its handle is balanced when it's full. It feels good to hold, no matter what.
What does a good cup of coffee do for your life?
This coffee cup doesn't fit in a car's cupholder. You can't put a lid on this cup of coffee. I wouldn't recommend walking very far, gesticulating at passersby, or even using a loud voice, while drinking coffee from this cup. Why? Because the cup is designed to stop you from doing those things while drinking from it. Because coffee isn't meant to be quaffed. Coffee isn't brash, it's contemplative. Coffee was forced into Styrofoam and plastic by the American auto industry and commuter culture. This coffee cup is a reminder, a coach, a teacher, gently touching your skin through the steam, humming a simple, empty words, "this will do."
The cup's anonymous, thoughtfulness outmaneuvers the usual dissatisfaction you might feel with a coffee cup's incompatibility with your speed, cupholder, and life, and replaces it clarity and confidence.
Sit and drink your coffee. Be simple, pure, and fresh. Do not affix yourself to branding or place. Do not over-accelerate because that shitty Starbucks cup filled with half-burned caffeine dirt can be swigged mid-jog. Recognize the simplest way to execute each moment in life.
That's what this Muji Cafe Au Lait Cup 495ML does. It's an empty vessel, it's the Daniel Day Lewis of coffee cups, and it mankind's best coffee cup.
