Zojirushi Stainless Steel Mug, 16oz, Smoky Blue Import To Shop ×Product customization General Description Gallery Reviews

A thermos that ticks all the boxesI’ve had a bit of an odyssey with thermos tumblers over the past few months. Initially, I tried the budget route since I thought, “it’s just a tumbler, it should be pretty hard to go wrong”. Realizing I had in fact made a mistake, I went for something a bit more expensive (more expensive than this tumbler), but was still left wanting both at the exorbitant prices a certain brand was charging for covered lids and from their mediocre thermal retention.Which finally brought me here to Zojirushi. Zojirushi is a somewhat well-known brand for rice cookers and other pressurized appliances, so it’s only natural that they’d know what they’re doing with a vacuum-seal and thermal applications.This thing is basically the holy grail of thermos tumblers. The heat retention is unbelievable. Compared to some of my other tumblers after (anecdotal) testing a couple of times, it regularly stayed ~20+ degrees F hotter than any of the others after being left to sit TWICE as long (the others lost their heat around ~2-3 hours, I gave up waiting on the Zojirushi to cool off after 6 HOURS). I’d go into more detail with some specific testing, but the difference between this tumbler and the others (vs. both a cheap $10 tumbler and a “premium” $35+$12 tumbler) was so drastic that I didn’t really see the point.The lid is entirely leak-proof as new. I haven’t had it very long, maybe after some wear and tear or being beaten around it might be possible for this to change, but I wouldn’t count on it. The design of the lid has multiple gaskets and is enclosed, so there would need to be failure in multiple places for this thing to ever leak. You can try to force it to leak, turn it upside down, shake it around, throw it, whatever you want, but nothing is gonna come out. The lid has a lock for added protection against accidentally opening it in a bag or in some other bad situation.The cap on the lid is exactly what I’d been looking for, an enclosed opening that is covered completely when you’re not drinking from it, but also opens enough that it won’t get in your way while you drink it. It flips back fully and then locks in place so that you don’t have a lid bumping against your nose. The opening itself is large enough for a good flow and also has a second opening for air to ensure a smooth pour. Again, the major plus here for me was that the lid is COMPLETELY sealed and covered. I’m not a fan of drinking from a lid out in public that I can’t cover up or protect in some way, this solves that issue extremely well.The ONE thing that must be remembered about this thermos: As long as you take care of it, it will take care of you. You have to hand-wash it. It’s not made to be put in the dishwasher or subjected to extreme heat or strong detergents. It’s not made to be left soaking in hot water. It’s not made to hold certain liquids for extended periods of time, like soups that are high in sodium since it can damage the interior coating. Assuming you use it regularly and always make sure to dump out any leftover coffee/tea/whatever then give it a rinse out it should last virtually forever. Take care of it like you would your stainless steel cooking utensils.Breaking down the lid is easy and simple. The parts of the cap come apart in a pretty self-explanatory manner, and it only takes a few seconds to run some hot water with soap and rinse it all off when you need to clean it.Some final considerations that I’d consider mostly subjective to each buyer:This 16oz version is pretty thin. Personally, this was appealing to me since it spends more time in a backpack side pocket than in a cup holder in a car. It’s easier to carry and hold than some of the other, fatter tumblers I’ve had. There are other versions of this brand that are more or less identical, but are made to fit better in a cup holder. You can find them on Amazon and they cost the same price as this one.The closed lid is probably better suited to an active or on-the-go usage than someone that just wants to keep their coffee hot sitting at their desk. You could just leave it open, but one of the alternative versions with a different lid might be better if that’s how you’d typically use it.I really like how it looks. It’s simple, clean, and professional. No-nonsense kind of look, especially the stainless design. Some people might want something a little less “stiff” with extra designs. I haven’t seen any Zojirushi tumblers that come in patterned designs or with anything like that, unfortunately. You could probably just get a wrap for it instead if you don’t like any of the colors.

A320 drivers – this is for you!I fly the Airbus 320 and this is the best thermos I have used. It fits the 320 cup holder nicely and the coffee stays warm during those long work days (or nights). There’s a little bit of play, but with all my takeoffs, landings, some rare occasions of moderate turbulence nothing has caused the thermos to move out of the cup holder.For those out there that commute and sit up front on the A320: both jumpseat cup holders seem to be made for this mug. Just don’t forget it in the airplane. I had two close calls already.The mouth piece can be a little challenge to clean on your overnight. Before I bought a small brush I used tissue paper to clean the small opening.Whether you use it for warm or cold drinks, the insulation is very impressive.

Best insulated mug ever!I’ve been holding off on buying this because the price is kind of steep but I decided to pull the trigger when it was on sale during Prime Day. This mug is a work of art. It holds liquids and insulates for hours and hours it as it advertises. No gimmicks. At the end of the day the liquid inside was still hot. After three or four hours after filling it with boiling water, it’s still scalding hot. I’ve been close to burning my tongue before. Sometimes it insulates too well and I unscrew the lid so it can cool off a bit.If you’re looking for something that’s reliable and lasts, look no further. It’s pricey at normal price/MSRP but well worth it for what you get. It seems high quality and I expect it to last for years.

Best Mug Ever! Period!This is a real vacuum flask. I’ve used a real-deal vacuum flask for my morning coffer for years now and there’s no going back. The “themal” cups you get in super markets don’t keep your beverage hot… a true vacuum flask will! I bring this everywhere with me, and panic when I don’t have it. I call it my “battery pack”. I’m a coffee addict, what can I say?Up until now, I’ve used the ones made by Thermos (the “Nissan” model and more recently, the newer models with the white tops like the NS402 series). They set the standard in the market. I loved my Thermoses, but they kept breaking on me. I was going through a couple a year. They also only come in the 16 ounce size. I decided to try this Zojirushi as an alternative and because they come in both 16 ounce and this 12 ounce version. I love it!The thermal properties are great! This will still keep my coffee scary hot for hours and hours. The stats: 203 degree F water left in a room temp environment will still be 147 F after 6 hours. That’s without the lid being opened at all, so real-world performance varies a bit, but this is still excellent performance for keeping coffee or tea hot. You can see the full details and specs on Zojirushi’s website: […]. They are much more transparent than Thermos. Thermos gives you a very vague “keeps hot/cold for X hours” spec, but only tells you what they mean by that (the actual performance metrics) on a sheet that comes in the box rather than anywhere you could find that info on their site or in their product description pages on Amazon. To be honest, the Thermos models do have technically better heat/cold retention on paper, but we are talking very marginal differences that don’t matter much in the real world. Put boiling water in this mug, come back to it 4 hours later and it is still hot enough to scald you. If you need better than that, then Thermos makes some even heavier duty models, but they aren’t designed to be sipped from.Like the Thermos models I had, this is a flip-and-sip design. The lid flips open with the push of a button and makes for easy sipping. This action minimizes the air exposure (ie heat loss) when you take a sip as opposed to the kind where you have to actually remove the whole lid to get at your drink. The Zojirushi lid, however, is much better-designed than the Thermos mugs.The sip hole is better shaped and sized for a smoother pour and smoother sip. It also feels more durable, opens more smoothly, and easily comes apart for easy cleaning, including all the rubber pieces (very nice). Much better than the Thermos offerings. The lid has a locking mechanism in the way of slick switch that slides side to side, locking the lid so that it doesn’t flip open accidentally. The Thermos mugs only have a metal clip that swings over to latch the lid in place (and which can easily come loose and be not so easy to disengage when you are in a rush.I love that the Zojirushi mugs come in both 16 ounce and 12 ounce. I got the 12 ounce for two reasons. First, to encourage me to drink less coffee (I drink 1-2 cups per day, so that’s 12-24 ounces a day as opposed to 16-32 ounces a day). Second, because even though the 16 ounce Zojirushi has better thermal specs, that is simply due to the added mass of the liquid in the mug (more mass, equals more thermal inertia). If you don’t fill your 16 ounce mug all the way up, it will loose heat faster because there’s more air in contact with the liquid. You get better real-world performance with a smaller mug, drank more quickly, than with a bigger mug where that last half is getting 8 ounces of fresh air mixed into it with every sip. Yes, I’ve put a lot of thought into this. This also probably (partially) explains the better on-paper performance metrics of the Thermos mugs (they only have 16 ounce). OK, enough thermodynamics.Another thing I love about the Zojirushi is options: not only can you get multiple sizes, but there are two version of this model mug, one with a “non stick coating” that is supposed to minimize clean up (KB), and this model here that does not have the non-stick coating and instead has a highly polished stainless (“Slick Steel”) interior (KHE). Now, I don’t know what the nonstick coating actually is, but I try to avoid anything with PTFE (Teflon) and generally try to avoid substances I don’t know and trust in things I eat/drink out of. So, I chose this KHE model because I trust plain old stainless steel much more and don’t feel like I need a nonstick coating in my drink bottle.I’m glad Zojirushi gives us the choice, although it does make picking out a drink bottle a little more confusing to the consumer. I advise you check out their website to find the model that best suits your needs, they have a very nice comparison feature! Aside from this model/style mug, they have a variety of other designs. Some have built in tea-strainers and other cool features if you are interested.Conclusion: expensive mug, but worth every penny. This is, I am convinced, the best coffee-drinking apparatus on the market. I’m super-happy with my purchase and I plan to get a second (backup) mug, maybe a larger one for the occasions where I do need it.

Not really a mugThis works well and keeps coffee hot for a long time. I would not really call it a mug, more of a drinkable thermos. The opening is quite small, there is no handle, and the top tends to get in the way of my big nose. Very easy to disassemble and clean.