The ceramic coffee mug!

Such a simple drinking vessel is the ceramic coffee mug, but one in which we can easily take for granted, or if you're smart, advantage of! In fact, ceramic coffee mugs are perhaps one of America's favorite promotional items. We've all seen them custom printed with promotional logos, or given as personalized mugs to friends and loved ones. They just make a great present whether it's for happy reunions, birthdays,
weddings, parties, apologies and so on.

The ceramic coffee mug is an everyday staple that can be found in any kitchen. The mugs come in all shapes, sizes and styles and some people even have collections of mugs from different places they’ve traveled or events they’ve participated in. As mentioned above, ceramic coffee mug makes a great keepsake for weddings or other special events, and can serve as a fantastic memento from a trip. The thing that makes a coffee mug a great keepsake is that it also doubles as a useful everyday item, namely for drinking out of, but some folks also stick small plants in them of use them as stationery holders.

Years ago you could visit a kiosk in the mall and have a mug custom made and personalized with a picture or a special saying. The kiosks surely still exist for the technophobes among us, but now you don’t even have to go through the effort of getting into your car and going to the shopping mall to create a unique personalized mug.

As long as you have an internet connection and the ability to upload pictures from your hard drive, you can have a ceramic coffee mug personalized from the comfort of your own home in any color or style you like. The best personalized mug I’ve seen in someone’s kitchen was a mug with a picture of a baby eating chocolate cake with his hands, and the only way you could tell there was a baby in the picture was by the outline of his head and the whites of his eyes—the only things in the picture not covered in frosting.

My personal favorite which was given to me by my sister way back in 1974, is a simple white mug with the words 'I hope you choke on it!' printed at a 45 degree angle around the mug. As you can guess, we had had the usual brotherly sisterly love during our growing years, but we laugh about it now, and she was quite surprised to find I still have it after all these years. I tend to have a more acquired taste these days and sip proper coffee from real nice espresso coffee cups, but I still love a mug full of tea from time to time.

Personalizing a ceramic coffee mug is also an inexpensive way to advertise your business. Most people have a collection of mismatched coffee mugs in their kitchen cabinets and what better way to get your message across than to have your business logo in your customer’s face every morning as they drink their coffee. To see the everyday item used as a marketing tool, witness the sheer volume of items like pens and pads of paper floating around in the world with the name of a prescription drug engraved on its surface.

Pharmaceutical companies make millions in profit every year and could afford to advertise on the sides of buildings if they chose. But they know the secret to marketing, and that is you want to get your message in front of as many eyes as you can. This becomes easy with engraving your message on everyday items we all use.

The one obvious problem with the ceramic coffee mug is that since it is made of ceramic, it can be fragile and susceptible to chipping, especially after being heated in a microwave or dishwasher. A good quality ceramic coffee mug is fired and finished and will not easily break, but when exposed to extreme heat or cold will become less resistant to breaking. Another drawback to the ceramic coffee mug is that it is not portable for travel.

The best and safest option for the traveler and, particularly if you're in a moving vehicle, is the Stainless Steel coffee cups and mugs which come with lids for safety. And even these can be personalized with custom engravings and logos.