Colour is an important theme of anyone’s life. Maybe you’re one of those people who likes muted tones and pastel colours. perhaps you paint your bedroom a fierce red to make sure everyone knows about your passion, or black to show how deep you are. Maybe you just really, really like beige. Some people just do. Heck, there are even some weirdos out there who don’t like coffee. It takes all sorts. But whether you’re thin, fat, tall, or short, everyone’s subconscious is vulnerable to suggestion, and it can be affected in simple, subtle ways.

As we pointed out last week, coffee is a visual experience as much as it is a taste-based one. Whether you’re drinking our Italian coffee or something less delicious, how much you enjoy it will be affected by something you might not have thought of: what colour your mug is.

A recent study by Flavour Journal has found that people experience the same drink differently depending on the shape, and the colour of what they are drinking from.

For example, a white ceramic mug might make your freshly-brewed Arabica coffee beans taste more bitter than, say, a blue mug would. Blue is soothing and calming, white symbolises purity. We’re not entirely sure why that would make your coffee more bitter, but it certainly explains every trip we’ve ever taken to CostaBucks Republic. It might have something to do with the contrast between a bright white cup and the dark, brown coffee. Our brains recognise the hard line between bright and dark and therefore the coffee has a more ‘intense’ flavour.

Other colours, or even shapes, have different effects. For example, it’s a proven fact that drinking from a white paper cup with a green mermaid on it, makes your coffee taste like watery disappointment.

Brown mugs make your coffee taste overpoweringly strong, orange makes hot chocolate taste warm and creamy, green makes somebody else’s coffee taste better than yours, and red makes you incredibly attractive to the opposite sex (note the colour of our branding). Okay, you’ve got us, we may have made some of those up, but for those of you interested in reading the full report, you can do so here: http://www.flavourjournal.com/content/3/1/10

Why not read the report while drinking some delicious Italian coffee from your favourite mug?

See what we have on offer here.