Daniel Norris
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The best travel coffee mug for most people is a MiiR insulated tumbler. It's my daily cup, the one sitting next to me at my desk right now, and it keeps my coffee hot for hours. If you want the short answer, that's it: the MiiR 360 Traveler.
I work from home, and I rarely drink a coffee in one go. Between work and family, I get interrupted. I needed a cup that would hold the heat until I got back to it, without making the coffee taste like metal. A lot of travel mugs do one of those things. The MiiR does both.
My pick: the MiiR 360 Traveler
I've owned a bunch of MiiR cups and water bottles over the years, and the travel tumbler is the one that stuck. It's the cup I reach for every day, for a few reasons.
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It holds the heat. Coffee stays hot for hours at my desk.
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The 360 lid. You can sip from any side, so there's no lining up a little opening while you're driving or typing.
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Clean flavor. The stainless steel inside doesn't add a taste of its own, which matters if you're paying for good beans.
One downside: like any stainless cup, the inside stains over time if you drink coffee out of it every day. A soak with an espresso machine cleaner gets it looking new again. Puro Caff is a good one for this.
👉 Check out Puro Caff on Amazon
👉 Grab the MiiR 360 Traveler on Amazon
Which travel coffee mug should you get?
It depends on where you are.
Starting out: use the insulated cup you already have. If it has a screw-on lid and doesn't leak, it'll do the job for a while. The main reason to upgrade is when your coffee is cold before you get to it, or the cup starts tasting like the last thing you put in it.
My pick: the MiiR 360 Traveler. It's the cup I actually use, and it does what most people want a travel coffee mug to do.
All in: the Ember Temperature Control Smart Mug. I don't own one, but it's the option if you want your coffee held at an exact temperature instead of slowly cooling. It's a mug for the desk more than the road, and it needs charging. I wrote more about it in my smart coffee mug guide.
What goes in it
At home, my daily coffee is a long black from the Gaggia: 18 grams of coffee in, 36 grams of espresso out, topped with hot water. On the road, I make a black V60 pour over in the hotel room with my travel kit, the Hario glass V60 and the OutIn Fino grinder. My travel coffee setup covers everything I pack, and here's why I rely on the OutIn Fino as my travel grinder.
If what you really want is to cut down on paper cups at the coffee shop, my reusable coffee cup post is a better place to start.
The Final Cup
If you're shopping for yourself, or for someone who drinks a lot of coffee, the MiiR 360 Traveler is the travel coffee mug I'd buy. This blog is full of recommendations, but I only stick with the things I buy with my own money and use for a long time. This cup is one of them.
