Handmade mugs

Hand-Thrown Pottery Mug in Shale

by North Carolina pottery

For the everyday mug that replaces all the others. Thrown on a wheel in North Carolina, and the throwing rings are still visible.

A wheel-thrown mug is asymmetric in the way a hand is asymmetric: the walls vary slightly in thickness, the handle is pulled rather than molded, and you can feel the rings under your fingers. That is the whole difference between this and a mug from a supermarket, and it is the difference people notice every single morning. Shale is a muted gray-brown glaze that goes with everything.

Huge Hand-Thrown Mug in Shale

by North Carolina pottery

For someone whose coffee always goes cold. The large format in shale gray rather than brownstone.

Identical to the huge brownstone mug in size and construction, in the cooler glaze. Listed separately because glaze choice is the entire decision here and getting it wrong on a fifty-six dollar mug is a real waste. Gray for a modern kitchen, brown for a warm one.

Hand-Thrown Coffee Mug in Brownstone

by North Carolina pottery

For a kitchen with wood and warm tones in it. The brown glaze from the same North Carolina wheel, for people who dislike gray.

Brownstone is the warm half of this maker range and it is the better choice against wood, copper or brass. Everything else about it matches the shale mug: hand-thrown, stoneware, and the same forty-two dollars. Pick on color alone, because there is nothing else between them.

Turquoise Falls Hand-Thrown Mug

by North Carolina pottery

For someone who wants the glaze to be the point. A running turquoise glaze that pools differently on every piece.

A falls glaze is one that moves in the kiln: it runs down the form and pools where it catches, so the pattern is decided by gravity and heat rather than by the maker hand. That makes each mug genuinely unique in a way most handmade claims are not. Buy it if their kitchen can take a strong blue-green.

Hand-Thrown Mug in Shale with Rust Chain

by North Carolina pottery

For a collector rather than a user. The same shale body with a rust-glazed band, which is where the maker signature is.

The rust chain is applied by hand around the mug, so its position and thickness change from piece to piece. If you want a gift where the recipient can see it was made rather than printed, this is the version to buy: the decoration itself is the evidence. Same maker and same size as the plain shale mug.

Handmade Stoneware Mug, Cobalt and Purple, 8 oz

For espresso, or hands that find a big mug heavy. A smaller 8 oz handmade stoneware mug, which is a tea size rather than a coffee one.

Eight ounces is the size a cup of tea actually wants: enough that you are not refilling, small enough that the last mouthful is still hot. Most handmade mugs are sized for American coffee, so a genuinely small one is harder to find than it should be. Cobalt and purple over stoneware.

Handmade Stoneware Soup Mug, 12 oz

For soup and coffee from the same object. A handled 12 oz chili bowl, which is a better object than it sounds.

A handled bowl is the most useful vessel in a kitchen and almost nobody owns one: it holds soup, chili, cereal or a large coffee, and the handle means you can carry it hot without a tray. Handmade stoneware, twelve ounces. This is the gift that quietly becomes the thing they use every day.

Huge Hand-Thrown Mug in Brownstone

by North Carolina pottery

For a genuinely oversized daily mug. The oversized version, and for some recipients it is the only correct one.

There is a specific kind of coffee drinker for whom a standard twelve-ounce mug is an annoyance, and they will tell you about it. This is the answer. Same wheel, same glaze, considerably more of it, and the extra fourteen dollars over the standard size buys a gift that is unmistakably chosen for the person rather than the category.