Due to COVID-19 restrictions some cafes aren't accepting reusable cups.
Reusable coffee cups are now commonplace in the line-up of orders at your local cafe. Popular brands include KeepCups and Frank Green, but there's hot competition from established homeware brands Avanti, Thermos and Bodum, along with smaller players. So what is the best reusable coffee cup?
We recruited five caffeine addicts to road-test nine popular styles and give their verdict on ease of use, design, leakage and more. We also lab-tested how well they retained heat.
Read more: How to buy the best coffee pod machine
You can buy reusable coffee cups in kitchenware stores, some cafes and often direct from the companies themselves. Many are also available from major retailers including Kmart, Myer, Officeworks, Spotlight and Woolworths.
In the product profiles below we've provided links to buy the reusable coffee cups on various sites where available (read more about Shopping links on the CHOICE website).
The products we tested are listed below from highest to lowest user trial score. See How we test for all the details.
RRP: from $16 (340mL/12oz)
Cup / lid material: Plastic / plastic
Time from 85°C to 40°C: 78 minutes
Cup / lid material: Stainless steel / plastic lid
Time from 85°C to 40°C: 355 minutes
RRP: from $30 (340mL/12oz)
Cup / lid material: Glass / plastic
Time from 85°C to 40°C: 68 minutes
Cup / lid material: Porcelain / silicone
Time from 85°C to 40°C: 89 minutes
Cup / lid material: Stainless steel / plastic
Time from 85°C to 40°C: 337 minutes
RRP: from $36.95 (340mL/12oz)
Cup / lid material: Plastic / plastic
Time from 85°C to 40°C: 91 minutes
RRP: from $19.95 (350mL/12oz)
Cup / lid material: Plastic / plastic
Time from 85°C to 40°C: 131 minutes
Cup / lid material: Glass / plastic
Time from 85°C to 40°C: 74 minutes
Thermocafe Travel Mug by Thermos
Cup / lid material: Stainless steel / plastic
Time from 85°C to 40°C: 194 minutes
It's now well-recognised that disposable coffee cups are largely unrecyclable and an environmental disaster across the world, filling up landfill and polluting waterways and our environs.
So is a reusable coffee cup a sustainable step forward? If you use one regularly –a nd over an extended period of time – it is.
A study from the University of Victoria in Canada created a 'break even' matrix for the energy inputs in production of disposable paper cups compared with reusable plastic, glass and ceramic cups.
The table shows how many times you'd have to use your reusable cup for it to become equally energy-efficient to the production of a paper cup.
According to KeepCup, using one of its plastic (LDPe) recyclable KeepCups for a year instead of disposable paper coffee cups will lead to a:
And some cafe s – including those that are signed up to responsiblecafes.org – offer a discount if you bring your own cup (around 50c on your coffee).
Which reusable coffee cup you prefer when it comes to look and feel can be subjective, but if you're after a cup that keeps drinks hotter for longer, our test found that the double-walled products retained the most heat, and of those, the stainless steel models performed better than ceramic, glass and plastic.
How much coffee fits into a reusable cup is definitely a consideration, after all short black drinkers don't need an oversized cup and a tiny cup won't cut it if you consume hot drinks by the gallon. Just bear in mind that if you want to use the cup to get your coffee from a cafe, it will need to be short enough to fit under the group head of the coffee machine.
We've included the size of the models tested in the profiles above, but most brands we looked at are available in a range of sizes, as follows:
See our product profiles for heat retention scores, user trial scores and a breakdown of good and bad points for each cup.
Thermal testing the cups in our lab.
User trial: Five people were recruited to each trial nine different reusable coffee cups. For each cup, triallists drank at least two coffees in it over a day, at least one of which was bought from a cafe. Triallists cleaned the cup after each use, and completed a survey form for the cup at the end of the day of use, which included giving each cup an overall rating out of 10. User score is the average of these ratings.
Thermal test: Cups were filled with boiling water and temperature loss was measured using thermocouples inserted through the centre of each cup's lid, and logged over a 12-hour period. The ambient temperature of the test lab ranged from 19.9°C to 20.6°C over this period. The heat retention score calculation was based on the amount of time it took for the liquid to go from hot (85°C) to lukewarm (40°C). The higher the score, the longer the cup keeps your beverage warm.
Good to know: The recommended retail price (RRP) and cup capacity stated in the profile is for the cup size we tested. Ounces (oz) are displayed where the manufacturer uses ounces on its website, but we've also included the measurement in mL for easier comparison. All plastic components are BPA-free.
CHOICE is an independent, non-profit organisation dedicated to helping consumers. Clicking a link will take you to a retailer's website to shop. While we make money if you buy through some retailer links, this doesn't influence any of our rankings. 100% of the money we make goes straight back into our non profit mission. We're currently testing this service and will consider providing more shopping links in the future. Tell us what you think.
We've tested to find you the best.
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We at CHOICE acknowledge the Gadigal people, the traditional custodians of this land on which we work, and pay our respects to the First Nations people of this country. CHOICE supports the First Nations people's Uluru Statement from the Heart.