Advantages of Using Glass
Looks and Safety
Glass mugs are great for tea or coffee because they allow you to have the elegance of a nice glass for use at home.
Most have a double-walled design that is both eye-catching and gives you the safety of knowing that you’ll never accidentally grab a glass that is boiling hot.
Insulation
The double-walled design of some of our favorite glasses gives better insulation than glass or ceramic, keeping your coffee or tea hotter for longer so you can enjoy your beverage at your own pace.
These glasses also provide insulation while still allowing the warm, homey feel of drinking from a glass instead of a stainless steel tumbler.
Easy Cleaning
Glass is much easier to clean than traditional ceramic mugs, and they can go in the dishwasher, unlike stainless steel tumblers.
Glass will never absorb flavors or smells, so you can use this glass for any beverage without worry of it imparting tastes from the drink that it held previously.
Eco-Friendly
All of these glass mugs are reusable and eco-friendly. If they ever break, they can be recycled endlessly—something that we all need to be thinking about when buying products in this day in age.
Features to Consider Before Buying
Type of Glass
When using glass to hold something like coffee, you want to make sure that you have a glass with high thermal shock resistance. Thermal shock resistance is the ability for glass to quickly go from one temperature extreme to another without cracking.
One type of glass that is exceptionally resistant to thermal shock is Borosilicate. It can easily go from the freezer to the oven without a problem. This is great if you love iced coffee because you can keep your glasses in the freezer to help chill the coffee quickly.
A coffee mug made of regular soda-lime glass, unlike Borosilicate, would be much more likely to shatter if you pulled it out of the freezer and poured hot coffee into it. By using tempered or borosilicate glass, you’ll get a durable mug with great thermal shock resistance
Design
The design is another important part of the coffee. My favorite being the double-walled design. The double-walled design will insulate the coffee and make it comfortable to hold the glass without worrying about it getting super hot.
If the cup isn’t double-walled, then you’ll want to make sure that it has a handle or a ring made of some insulating material so that you won’t ever accidentally pick up a hot glass.
OUR FAVORITE GLASS MUGS!
Best Double-Walled Glass
The Sweese Glass Coffee Mugs are one of our favorite picks on the whole list.
They feature a double-walled design, which helps to insulate your drink, keeping it colder or hotter for longer, and it means that the outside layer of glass is not as affected by temperature, so you’ll never accidentally pick up a scolding hot glass.
The mug is also made of borosilicate glass to handle quick temperature changes like pouring in hot coffee and then throwing it in the freezer with ice to chill it quickly. Regular glass would shatter under this kind of thermal shock, but borosilicate handles it without a problem.
The use of this more durable glass also means that it is completely dishwasher safe and won’t etch or cloud over time, even with daily washes.
Best Set
The Bormioli Rocco Glass Coffee Mug Set is a collection of six beautiful glasses. They are not double-walled, but they do have extra thick glass to help insulate your drink.
The glass is lead-free and tempered so that it is safe to reheat your drink in. The handle is built with very comfortable ergonomics, and it is a cool touch, which means that even if the glass is used to reheat your coffee, the handle will still stay cool.
This makes the glass very convenient and always at a safe temperature, so you never have to worry about accidentally burning yourself.
Best Insulated Tumbler
The Bodum Pavina Double Wall Glass comes in a set of 2 or 6, with each glass holding 12 fl oz, making them the perfect size for any drink.
They are built from mouth-blown double-walled borosilicate glass, making them extremely durable, dishwasher safe, and able to safely go from one temperature extreme to another; an extra important feature for those of us that like to make iced coffee and want to be able to do it quickly.
You can also safely reheat your drinks in the microwave, stovetop, or oven. You’ll notice that there is no handle, but the double-walled design keeps the outside cool to the touch and prevents condensation, so the glass never gets slick.
Best Mason Jar
If you’re wanting mason jar glasses, then the Brimley Mason Jar Mugs are what you want because they come out of the box with everything you need.
They are made of thick glass for better insulation, but they also have a handle, so you never have to worry about holding a piping hot or ice-cold glass.
They come with a metal lid that prevents spills and makes on the go drinks a possibility, and they come with metal straws that are super durable and help keep the drink cold or warm.
They also come with a special cleaning tool to help you make sure that the straws are always clean for your next drink.
Best For Travel
We loved the KeepCup Brew Cork Tempered Glass for many reasons, but one of the best ones is that they come in a bunch of different sizes.
They come in 6 oz, 8 oz, 12 oz, and 16 oz options, so people who prefer smaller drinks like teas or espressos can get a little glass, and those of us that may need something that holds more than one cup of coffee can get something a little bigger.
The glass shown above is the 12 oz model, but they are all built to “barista standards” so that they will fit under most commercial coffee machines, even the ones your favorite coffee house uses.
It is made of tempered glass, which makes it durable and microwave safe for easy reheating. It is not double-walled, but the glass is thick to help with insulation, and it has an eco-friendly cork band to keep your hands off of the glass.
The top is built with a comfortable, smooth pour, and it has a tight-fitting seal that completely closes off the top, which ultimately became the deciding factor for this becoming our favorite travel mug.
Best For Espresso
The DeLonghi Double-Walled Thermo Espresso Glasses are perfect for espressos, but keep in mind that they are tiny, so while they make a fantastic espresso glass, they will not hold a cup of coffee.
Because espressos are little shots, these are essentially double-walled shot glasses, holding 2 fl oz each and coming in a set of two or six glasses. The double-walled design keeps your espresso piping hot and makes the glass comfortable to hold as the outside will never get too hot or condensate.
For easy cleanup, these espresso glasses are also 100% dishwasher safe.
Best Large Glass
The PunPun Large Double-Walled Glass Mug is precisely that; it’s an exceptional and massive glass mug, perfect for large cups of coffee or tea. At 17 oz, this is one of the largest glass mugs on the market.
But besides that, it also hits all the requirements for a great mug that’s easy to use. It has double-walled construction for superior insulation, a handle for a more comfortable grip since the glass is so large, and these glasses are completely dishwasher safe.
Designer Aroma Enhancing Mug
The Avensi Coffee Enhancing Glass is a designer mug dedicated to bringing out your favorite coffee’s complex flavors. It does this by utilizing a couple of unique design features.
First of which is a hybrid double-walled design. The bottom of the glass is double-walled to keep your coffee warm, but the top is single-walled. This allowed them to get a super thin lip on the rim optimized to deliver the coffee to your taste buds.
This glass mug is large, 14 oz, which allows it to work as your daily coffee mug holding more than a full cup when filled to the bring, but it also functions as a tasting glass.
If you only fill the glass with 6 oz, then the coffee can be swirled like a fine wine, releasing more aromatics and capturing them in the bowl so that they can strengthen and grow before being delivered up to the nose.
This swirling action and the single-walled upper also allow you to cool your coffee quickly if it is too hot, giving you some temperature control within the glass.
