Yahoo Finance Rishi Sunak's smart mug and the art of home office one-upmanship
While some eyes are fixed on the Chancellor’s red box, and whether Rishi Sunak will announce a stamp duty holiday today, other, more discriminating style spotters have picked up on the fact that the rising star of the Conservative government is as exacting about his tea as he is profligate in his budgets.
In a photo released ahead of the mini budget, Sunak appears Looking Seriously At Documents with an Ember Travel mug, a ‘smart mug’ costing £180 that contains a temperature-control function to keep your hot drink at a specific temperature for up to three hours.
It comes nestled on its own ‘charging coaster’ and looks pleasingly sci-fi in matte black ceramic. No Sports Direct flagon of Tetley here (actually, as a recent Twitter meltdown proved, he prefers Yorkshire).
It’s entirely on brand for ‘Dishy Rishi’, whose £30bn recovery package to boost the economy during the coronavirus crisis, reassuring delivery and polished demeanour have turned him into the Tories’ pandemic golden boy. Of course Sunak doesn’t allow his tea to go tepid. The man needs all the fuel for the fire he can get.
The Travel Mug 2, £179.95, Ember
Even pre-lockdown, before the only thing we had to focus on was what you can see on someone’s desk during a Zoom call, there was a growing one-upmanship for the most sleekly designed and eco-conscious water bottle.
From the ubiquitous marble-effect S’Well to the could-be-NASA-grade Larq Bottle with in-built e-purification system that beams UV-C light into your water, plus mercury-free flask and LED battery, water bottles became a status symbol of office life. Burberry even proposed that you transport yours in its £250 rainbow-hued carrier.
These days, our at-home desk curation has never been more pertinent. For those so focused on their Zoom meeting that the tea goes cold, smart mugs are the tech-bro solution. Sunak’s is at the upper end of the cost spectrum, but others have their own USPs.
There’s the Yecup, at £127, which functions as a power dock for your iPhone or iPad while you’re on the go. Then there’s the £40 Ozmo, which is designed to integrate with your Fitbit to chart your movement. But Sunak’s Ember mug wins in the looks stakes; little surprise when his wife Akshata Murphy, the glamorous daughter of India’s sixth richest man who reportedly gave it to him, runs a fashion company.
Hot drink exactitude is nothing new for the power elite. American designer Calvin Klein was said to have a colour chart of correct coffee shades for his assistants to follow. Too dishwater pale or murky brown and you could be shown the door.
Anna Wintour’s precise coffee order has become the stuff of legend; hence the multiple coffee runs as depicted in The Devil Wears Prada and assistants on standby at various locations to hand her a Starbucks.
The mug in question feeds into the contemporary, dynamic image that Sunak has carved out for himself in recent years. There’s the swirling ‘RS’ logo attached to his social media statements, subject of much chatter on Twitter and likened to branding on a pasta sauce range.
There’s the range of suits that stand apart from the rest of the rather sloppily attired Tory government. Perfectly fitted in midnight blue and black hues and designed to elongate his slimline frame, they convey the seriousness of his task. Likewise his hair - while Boris Johnson jokes about his unruly mop, Sunak hasn’t allowed a little thing like a lockdown ban on hairdressers to get in the way of looking perfectly groomed and pulled-together.
Leave the dustier members of parliament to fuss about with chintzy tea cosies; Sunak’s 21st-century approach shows he’s got higher things to focus on.
Sign up for the Telegraph Luxury newsletter for your weekly dose of exquisite taste and expert opinion.
