Curious Mugs by T.Radić

People who know me know I’m a patchwork of enthusiasms. Coffee and cats, yes—that much is obvious. But also people. Good people. People who love things, and things that are, themselves, good. I have a particular fondness for artists, who often fall into this category: people who love good things, who make them, who share them.

It seemed natural, then, to create a corner of this website devoted not just to coffee, but to curiosity—the place where the eccentric and the beautiful, the useful and the improbable, might sit side by side. Thus: the Curio Cabinet.

A curio cabinet, traditionally, is a glass display case of marvels: seashells, porcelain figurines, relics of a life. Mine is still a work in progress, as is our brand itself, but the first object to land on its shelf was a collaboration—Curious Mugs, by Tea Radić, an academic sculptor from Croatia who believes in the singular, imperfect beauty of ceramics.

I fell for Tea’s work instantly. She agreed to create prototypes, and what emerged were not just mugs, but small sculptures—each hand-pinched, no two identical, each carrying the thumbprint of the maker. To drink from one is to feel as though the piece was made precisely for you, because in some sense, it was.

Their journey has been, appropriately, eventful. The first batch sold out quickly. The second, in an improbable twist, vanished en route from Split to Šibenik, only to be rediscovered in a chapel—rescued, mercifully, by a priest, a friend of Tea. I left them in Šibenik for a while, to recover from what was surely a transformative pilgrimage. The third batch is, as I write this, negotiating the labyrinthine rituals of Brexit customs.

All of which is to say: these mugs, like most worthwhile things, come with stories attached. Some even arrive, unintentionally, with priest blessings.

Here’s to many more collaborations—and to raising a sculpted mug, still warm with coffee, in a toast to curiosity itself!