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The people's cup: How the Arcoroc mug took over New Zealand
https://thespinoff.co.nz/food/08-05-2019/the-peoples-cup-how-the-arcoroc-mug-took-over-new-zealandThe people’s cup: How the Arcoroc mug took over New Zealand
By John Summers
Contributing writer
Illustration: Toby Morris
Hard to break, cheap as chips, filled with instant coffee or weak tea – it’s the mug of the marae, the staffroom, the factory canteen, the church hall. It’s our mug, says John Summers.
Our son was born almost three months ago. He’s close by, fighting sleep in his bassinet as I write this. He came into the world, pink and screaming, after hours of labour in a rural hospital. I won’t pretend that any of the hard work was mine – I flustered around with an oil diffuser and the affirmative phrases we’d been taught in antenatal class – but still, I was exhausted too. The three of us sat together when it was all over, our emotions rolled out thin. As he peered at my partner and me with minutes-old eyes, the midwife bought us both hot drinks, the first smoko of that longest day, comfort welcome no matter how it came, and it came, of course, in smoked glass.
Those smoke-tinted glass mugs, the handle and cup all one single transparent piece. I describe them only because they aren’t always known by name. If they are though, it tends to be ‘Arcoroc mug’, for the French company that makes them. Officially they are the Fumer Coffee Mug, but it’s unlikely anyone says that out loud. Marae mugs is another thing I’ve heard them called. My first jobs were at places where the hours were punctuated by the thud of the time clock, and Arcorocs of weak tea and instant coffee drunk in dusty rooms. But even before that I knew them well, spotting them in my school staffroom, in church halls and at home too. We always had one in the cupboard. I’ve seen them since in club rooms, staff rooms again, and the highway-side tearooms where I’ve stopped on a long drive home. They are a part of the scenery.
David Mansbridge, a general manager at Southern Hospitality, an Arcoroc distributor, talked to me about their popularity. “The numbers sold, god, I don’t know, it would be thousands, heaps.” Their strength had much to do with this. Drop an Arcoroc and it will just as likely bounce as break. The glass is tempered, heat-treated to resist extreme temperatures.
[..._]
By John Summers
Contributing writer
Illustration: Toby Morris
Hard to break, cheap as chips, filled with instant coffee or weak tea – it’s the mug of the marae, the staffroom, the factory canteen, the church hall. It’s our mug, says John Summers.
Our son was born almost three months ago. He’s close by, fighting sleep in his bassinet as I write this. He came into the world, pink and screaming, after hours of labour in a rural hospital. I won’t pretend that any of the hard work was mine – I flustered around with an oil diffuser and the affirmative phrases we’d been taught in antenatal class – but still, I was exhausted too. The three of us sat together when it was all over, our emotions rolled out thin. As he peered at my partner and me with minutes-old eyes, the midwife bought us both hot drinks, the first smoko of that longest day, comfort welcome no matter how it came, and it came, of course, in smoked glass.
Those smoke-tinted glass mugs, the handle and cup all one single transparent piece. I describe them only because they aren’t always known by name. If they are though, it tends to be ‘Arcoroc mug’, for the French company that makes them. Officially they are the Fumer Coffee Mug, but it’s unlikely anyone says that out loud. Marae mugs is another thing I’ve heard them called. My first jobs were at places where the hours were punctuated by the thud of the time clock, and Arcorocs of weak tea and instant coffee drunk in dusty rooms. But even before that I knew them well, spotting them in my school staffroom, in church halls and at home too. We always had one in the cupboard. I’ve seen them since in club rooms, staff rooms again, and the highway-side tearooms where I’ve stopped on a long drive home. They are a part of the scenery.
David Mansbridge, a general manager at Southern Hospitality, an Arcoroc distributor, talked to me about their popularity. “The numbers sold, god, I don’t know, it would be thousands, heaps.” Their strength had much to do with this. Drop an Arcoroc and it will just as likely bounce as break. The glass is tempered, heat-treated to resist extreme temperatures.
[..._]
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
That's 2 of 3 that's posts I've botched this morning.
