Mug

Large mugs, typically made of metal or pottery and used for drinking beer, are likely to be called tankards.

Other materials, including enameled metal, plastic, or steel are preferred, when reduced weight or resistance to breakage is at a premium, such as for camping.

Techniques such as silk screen printing or decals are used to apply decorations such as logos or images and fan art, which are fired onto the mug to ensure permanence.

Metal mugs were produced from bronze,[7] silver, gold,[8] and even lead,[9] starting from roughly 2000 BCE, but were hard to use with hot drinks.

The invention of porcelain around 600 CE in China brought a new era of thin-walled mugs suitable both for cold and hot liquids, which are enjoyed today.

Modern versions of the scuttle are in limited production, usually by independent potters working in small volumes.

Some scuttles and mugs have concentric circles on the bottom, which retain some water thus helping to build lather.

Individual artists, such as Van Tiki, also produced limited one-of-a-kind hand sculpted mugs.

[12] Travel mugs (introduced in the 1980s[citation needed]) generally employ thermal insulation properties for transporting hot or cold liquids.

Travel mugs have a spill-proof lid with a sipping opening[14] and in many cases, a narrower base, so that they will fit into the cup-holders that are built into many vehicles.

[citation needed] Additional criteria for evaluating auto mugs include: they must be easy to open single-handedly (to prevent distractions while driving), include a fill line (to prevent over-filling, which contributes to leaking), preferably have no handles (no-handled mugs are easier to grab while driving), should not obstruct a driver's view of the road when he or she is drinking, and - with regard to cup-holders be able to fit, stably, into a wide range of mug holders.

[17] The Pythagorean cup (see picture) contains a small siphon hidden in a rod placed in the mug center.

However, the most popular decoration technique nowadays is printing on mugs, which is usually performed as follows: Ceramic powder is mixed with dyes of chosen color and a plasticizer.

Then it is printed on a gelatin-coated paper using a traditional screen-printing technique, which applies the mixture through a fine woven mesh, which is stretched on a frame and has a mask of desired shape.

This technique produces a thin homogeneous coating; however, if smoothness is not required, the ceramic mixture is painted directly with a brush.

[22] Another topological example is a mug with two handles, which is equivalent to a double torus – an object resembling number 8.

[24] Many languages − including French, Italian, Polish, Russian, German − use two separate words for mugs and traditional cups.

Anna Wierzbicka suggested that this situation is due to a slightly different functionality: the traditional cups are designed for drinking while sitting down at the table, while the mug is supposed to be used anywhere.