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Lifeventure Thermal Mug
SUMMARY: Works brilliantly at keeping the OO in your Typhoo for well over 3 hours. Good size for a single cup of tea, and small enough to stash in a side-pocket of most backpacks. Looks great, feels rugged and seals itself brilliantly. Just cool your tea before leaving home if you'll be in a rush later.
Editor's Pros & Cons
Pros
- Great build quality & durability
- Awesome insulation
- Looks quite cool
Cons
- Almost too good at keeping things hot if you're in a rush
In-Depth Review
I'm very disappointed. I've just returned from a 6-mile speed hike on a very blustery day. It's a route I measured out on my OS map and follows a valley floor from home to a pretty little view over a Surrey hamlet. I like to get to the 'turn around' point and allow myself 5 minutes for a drink and absorb the view. Today's 5-minutes were completely spoilt by the Lifeventure Thermal Mug keeping the cup of tea which I brewed before leaving home way too hot to enjoy in my short break.
I seethed the 50-minute hike home and looked forward to taking a gulp on my return instead. But no, that too was ruined by the thermal mug, which stubbornly refused to allow my tea to reach anything resembling drinkable temperature for a good few more minutes of being open to the air.
So, it works excellently for sealing in heat (or cold), that's safe to say. And it's very impressively leak-proof too. The top only turns 1/3rd of a revolution before you can hold it upside down and gasp at the lack of boiling beverage falling on your feet. 2 hours of bouncing around in a backpack pocket caused not even a sniff of a leak.
The top of the Thermal Mug unscrews to house a teabag. But it also serves to allow pressure to dissipate as your drink cools. Lifeventure describes it thus " Expansion chamber with a pressure release valve in lid". It's also the perfect place to stash a Murray Mint.
It weighs in at 300g, which is reassuringly heavy. And it feels rugged, being made from stainless steel - there are no glass thermos-style inners to shatter.
I could pick holes in the design for not having any form of attachment mechanism. But then, it's small enough to fit in even the smallest pockets of my daysack, so you don't need them really. And you could argue that it's the same price as a larger 0.5L Thermos flask, but then again I don't want to carry more than one cup of tea, or the additional weight. So think of it as a cute little one-man flask for that essential cuppa on a hike, at work or wherever.
I seethed the 50-minute hike home and looked forward to taking a gulp on my return instead. But no, that too was ruined by the thermal mug, which stubbornly refused to allow my tea to reach anything resembling drinkable temperature for a good few more minutes of being open to the air.
So, it works excellently for sealing in heat (or cold), that's safe to say. And it's very impressively leak-proof too. The top only turns 1/3rd of a revolution before you can hold it upside down and gasp at the lack of boiling beverage falling on your feet. 2 hours of bouncing around in a backpack pocket caused not even a sniff of a leak.
The top of the Thermal Mug unscrews to house a teabag. But it also serves to allow pressure to dissipate as your drink cools. Lifeventure describes it thus " Expansion chamber with a pressure release valve in lid". It's also the perfect place to stash a Murray Mint.
It weighs in at 300g, which is reassuringly heavy. And it feels rugged, being made from stainless steel - there are no glass thermos-style inners to shatter.
I could pick holes in the design for not having any form of attachment mechanism. But then, it's small enough to fit in even the smallest pockets of my daysack, so you don't need them really. And you could argue that it's the same price as a larger 0.5L Thermos flask, but then again I don't want to carry more than one cup of tea, or the additional weight. So think of it as a cute little one-man flask for that essential cuppa on a hike, at work or wherever.
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