the ember mug 2, or the end of microwaved coffee as a lifestyle

I used to drink my coffee in three sittings, and none of them were on purpose. One at 6am while I answered comments, one at 9am reheated in the microwave with a skin on top that I pretended was crema, and one sad lukewarm puddle at 1pm that I drank out of spite. There were half cups on my desk like little monuments to a person who could not finish anything. Then a friend said, "you know they make a mug that heats itself," and I said "no," and she said "yes," and I ordered it the same night.

Four years later it is the one object on my desk that has never once betrayed me.

the honest bit, guilt included

I paid $129.95 plus tax for the ember mug 2 in the 10 ounce size, white, in january 2022, list price, no sale, the usual story of my life. The 14 ounce runs $149.95 and there are constant deals that bring both under a hundred, which I have watched from my full-price balcony with my full-price mug. It comes with a charging coaster that is doing more work than it gets credit for.

what i actually care about, in order of care

The pitch is exactly what it says: your drink stays at the temperature you chose until the last sip. There is a heating element in the base and a temperature you set between 120 and 145 degrees, in single degree increments, which is a level of control I did not know I wanted and now cannot live without. I keep mine at 132. On the coaster, it holds that temperature all day. The coffee does not get stronger, colder, or stranger. It just stays the coffee.

Off the coaster, the battery is the asterisk, and the asterisk is honest. The 10 ounce holds its temperature for about 90 minutes untethered, the 14 ounce about 80, and then the element taps out and it becomes a regular nice mug. For me this has never mattered, because the coaster lives on my desk and the mug lives on the coaster, and it is the only appliance I own that is honest about being a desk appliance. If you are a person who carries coffee into the yard, size your expectations before the price.

There is one rule and you will learn it the hard way. The mug wants to be empty when you put it back on the coaster, or at least mostly empty, because the coaster charges the mug and a full cold mug confuses the math and can leave you with a lukewarm surprise. Every ember owner has hit this once. I hit it in week two, drank a 96 degree coffee, and understood the manual existed for a reason.

The app is optional and the mug is smarter than it looks. You pick a temperature in the app, set presets, rename the mug, and then the mug remembers the last setting forever with no phone in the room. A little light on the face turns red when it is heating and green when your drink is ready, which at 6am, in a dark apartment, is a small kindness. I open the app maybe once a season. The basics live in the hardware.

It is hand wash only, and it is submersible, which is a confusing pair of facts. No dishwasher, ever, for the electronics' sake, just a soft sponge and a minute of your life. But it is sealed well enough to survive a meter of water, so the occasional sink dunk is not a tragedy. The coating is a ceramic finish over stainless steel that still looks white after four years of daily coffee, which I did not expect. Consumer Reports scratched theirs to check, and mine only shows a faint ring where the coffee line lives.

The gripes: it is a hundred and thirty dollar mug and the battery ages. There is no version of this pitch that is not absurd on paper, and I will not pretend a thermos does not exist. Two thermal cautions: battery capacity has dipped a bit in year four, which is normal and worth knowing before you buy, and the 10 ounce is genuinely small, so big coffee people should buy the 14 and be done. Also there is a mug 3 now, so mine is officially the previous model, which is the story of everything I own.

the mug shelf, a tangent

My kitchen has a shelf of mugs I do not drink from. The one from the airbnb in door county. A very heavy one from a design conference. A mug with a cat on it that my mom bought in 2011. And the hand-thrown one, lumpy and beautiful, that my older sister made in a community class the year she was learning pottery, glazed the color of a storm. For four years the ember has been the mug I actually use, and the storm mug holds pens on my desk now, which I told her about in a parking lot, braced for impact, and she said, "good, it never held heat anyway." Sisters are underrated. The ember heats. The storm mug holds pens. Everybody is employed.

the soft landing

I keep meaning to try the tea preset at the proper temperature instead of my coffee number, green tea people insist on 175 or something, and every time I open the app I get distracted by the little graph of my morning and

The truest thing: this is a hundred and thirty dollar object whose entire job is one warm thing staying warm, and in a life with a lot of small cold betrayals, that turns out to be worth more than it sounds.

keep it warm

ava