We’ve Recommended This Travel Mug for a Decade. It’s Still Going Strong.

A version of the Zojirushi mug has been a Wirecutter pick since 2013 because it does an exceptionally good job of keeping hot liquids hot and cold liquids cold.

The heat retention is where the vacuum-insulated Zojirushi really stands out.

For our testing, we filled the mug with water that was 200 °F and put it in the freezer, and eight hours later the water temperature had dropped to only 142 °F. In the same test, another travel mug pick (which is also vacuum-sealed) let the water temperature fall to 80 °F.

I’ve carried a Zojirushi mug in my bag through the New York City subway in all weather, on multi-day road trips, and to weekend-long conventions. In every situation, without fail, it never let my coffee become cold or undrinkable.

One of the main reasons to get a travel mug is so you won’t spill hot coffee or tea all over your car or inside a bag. Unfortunately, many travel mugs fail at this basic task. Not the Zojirushi.

The lid has a nifty locking latch, which is easy to work with one hand and prevents the lid from opening accidentally (an absolute necessity for something you throw in your bag alongside a laptop).

After about five years of daily use, my Zojirushi has never leaked. During that time, I threw it in bags, dropped it on kitchen counters, and once dropped it two stories from a balcony onto concrete.

The mug took on many dents and scratches, but it kept my coffee, and anything that was in my bag alongside it, safe the whole time.

After we’ve spent years testing and recommending travel mugs, the only real complaint we’ve heard about the Zojirushi is that occasionally it does its job too well, keeping a beverage scalding hot long after the coffee or tea drinker suspects it to still be so.

Because of the Zojirushi’s long reign as our travel mug pick, dozens of Wirecutter staffers have owned one throughout the years, and not one of us has registered a complaint.

Our mugs have held up through years of city excursions and drops onto floors and concrete. The lid requires regular cleaning—which is just a matter of disassembling, rinsing with soapy water, and reassembling. And we recommend using a bottle brush to scrub the inside of the mug, due to its narrow mouth.

A version of this post was originally published as part of our 2020 “52 Things We Love” series, an ode to Wirecutter picks that have stood the test of time. Read the entire series. The current version was edited by Christine Cyr Clisset and Chris Ryan.