Your Favourite Mugs

A little while ago, we asked you to send us photos of your favourite mug and tell us why that's the mug you go for when you need that all-important reviving, comforting cup of tea.

To finish off our 'Two Weeks of Tea', we're going to show you some of our favourites:

Thankyou to Rafi-Lopez for this Mexican mug given as a gift to a French lady who since living in England has adopted the custom of afternoon tea at 4pm. Excellent stuff.


Another very international mug here from mais_oui, although this time it's also a very political one. It was one of many sold in the 1980s to raise money to support Nicaragua's FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front), a revolutionary party who seized power, only to be toppled by Regan's administration. Along with the politics, mais_oui tells us that it is also a familiar object from her childhood, combining 'domesticity and global politics'.

This is clearly a well-loved and well-used mug, a little bashed about but loved nonetheless. mmbrook8 tells us that it is from her undergraduate college, which she likes to have a little reminder of wherever she goes. The mug is an excellent way to do this. And functional too - what more could you want?



This is a very intriguing contribution from lolamaxx. It was purchased at Dickens' World in Chatham Maritime, Kent. The mind boggles at what that might involve.

We would like to say a big thankyou to everyone who has contributed photographs, we are glad that it is not just us who views our mugs as old friends.
See everyone's contributions on our Flickr group here.

That is it for our photo events, we hope that you have enjoyed sharing some of the things which make up your homes.

Our blog will be drawing to a close soon but fear not - we have one last mystery object up our sleeve. Look out for it soon, we think it might be the most difficult yet...

Two Weeks of Tea

Update: We've decided to give you some extra time to get your favourite mug photos in - the photo event will now end on Tuesday 3rd May and that's when we'll be posting our favourites.

For the next two weeks, the World at Home blog will be running under the theme of tea!

Drinking tea is often associated with the English, yet it's something which is not originally English at all, which makes it the perfect way to explore international influences in the home.

If you want to find out more about where tea comes from and how it ended up in English homes, look out for our Digital Story called 'The History of Tea in English Homes' which will appear on the Geffrye Museum's website in May.

Your Favourite Mug

As part of our 'two weeks of tea', we've decided to run another photographic event!

Drinking tea is often considered a very 'English' past time, but we know that not only does tea get taken in many different ways all across the UK, but people from all over the world drink it too. After all, the English weren't the first people to drink tea.

Once tea started to be imported into Britain in the late 1600s, people here took to it very quickly, but drinking tea meant they needed to have something to drink it from. As well as tea, ships started bringing in the delicate china it was drunk out of - first tea bowls, then tea cups! Now, the range of things you can buy for drinking your tea out of is huge, and cups and mugs are made from many different materials.

We want to see what it is you drink your tea out of. Maybe a picture of your favourite mug or tea cup, or the one you use most often. Maybe you have one that was imported, just like they were first imported to Britain from China.

Once again, you can send us your photos by adding them to our Flickr group. Once you've uploaded your images to your Flickr account, join our group and click 'add something' to contribute your images. Tell us all about your mug in the photo's description.

This way, we can collect your images and make our own online gallery of favourite mugs.

Here are a couple of our favourite mugs to get you started:

"My mum bought this mug for me after I got my GCSE results. I'd been really ill during the exams and was so worried about how the results would come out! They turned out all right and this mug helps to cheer me up when I'm worried about something."

"Yes, this is actually a mug! I saw this camera lens mug on the internet and wanted it for a long time before my boyfriend bought it for me as a Christmas present. I love it because it looks so real, people always give me a funny look when I start pouring boiling water into it. Plus, it matches my real camera lenses."

You don't need to be a professional photographer, or even have a camera - a mobile phone shot will do, or maybe you could even draw us a picture! We want to get as many people as possible exploring their home for international influences, and then let you share them with people all over the world! If you can't get us a picture, tell us about your international objects in the blog comments.

Our favourite images and/or stories from the group will be posted here on the blog next Saturday (30th April). Check back to see if yours makes it!

Mystery Object No. 1 - the Solution

The waiting is over! Thankyou to all of you who guessed, and apologies for driving one or two of you a little mad. We can now reveal the true identity of our mystery object: congratulations to those who guessed it was a tea cup!

(c) Geffrye Museum, London

One of the things we are currently in the process of doing is putting together a digital story on the history of tea drinking in English homes (available on the Geffrye Museum website from early May), so we will be looking at a lot of teacups in the next few weeks!

This one is part of a set manufactured by Royal Worcester in 1876, and is decorated with the ‘Variety’ pattern, which includes a scroll pattern, stylised flowers and a bamboo design.

The decoration is influenced by both Japanese and Middle Eastern designs, and is our first example of how styles and techniques from across the globe have appeared in English homes.