Review: Oxo Good Grips Thermal Mug With SimplyClean Lid

Travel mugs are personal things. Even if we're not traveling much right now, they go where we go during Coffee Hours. They are also surprisingly finicky. Notably, most of them are not dishwasher-safe, or are what you might call “dishwasher averse.” It's a weird statement on our priorities and interests when some mugs have apps and built-in USB-charging heaters, yet we're supposed to wash most of the travel mugs on the market by hand.

So I was excited when a media rep for the all-things-kitchen brand Oxo mentioned in passing that the company’s new travel mug was entirely dishwasher safe. So new and peculiar was the idea to both the rep and me, that they ended up needing to confirm with their product team that both the plastic lid and the vacuum-sealed bottom could go into the machine.

For years, I've used a Vessel Drinkware travel mug I bought at Seattle's Empire Coffee and Records. The paint eventually flaked, and I ended up chipping it all off entirely to reveal a stainless steel mug that still manages to look pretty sharp. Barring any misfortunes, it has another couple of years left in it. The downside is that the top is fussy to clean, and neither the top nor bottom can go into the dishwasher.

While I am used to handwashing the mug, I'd rather not be. As a result, it spends an impressive amount of time in the purgatory pile above the dishwasher and just to the left of the sink, the spot where my wife Elisabeth and I put stuff we're too lazy to clean right away.

Insulated stainless steel travel mugs that are dishwasher-safe are surprisingly rare birds. Tops often can't handle a wash cycle because the extreme heat inside the machine can warp and soften the plastic. Double-walled bottoms might lose their coats of paint or have their temperature-preserving abilities compromised.

The brand-new Oxo Good Grips Thermal Mug with SimplyClean Lid, which comes in 16- and 20-ounce sizes, was impressive straight away, with a firm build and a lid that disassembles into four parts—three interlocking discs and a gasket—all of which slide easily onto the top-shelf silverware rack in my dishwasher. It kept my coffee hot, seemed reasonably spill-proof, and looked pretty good. To be thorough, I ordered a bunch of its top-rated competitors, creating a hybrid list from the favorites of our friends at America's Test Kitchen and The Wirecutter.

What surprised me most was how much this “travel mug” category needs to be cleaved in two. In the “adventure” camp would be the folks who want screaming hot liquid for the entirety of their 12-mile hike. They may also wish to throw their mug into a bag, roll that bag down the hill, and not worry about the fuzzy fleece they packed getting leaked on. The other group would be the "hey dude, I just like my coffee to be hot when I get downtown" commuters. There might be some limited jostling on the train. The Oxo seems to fall in this latter camp.

Photograph: OXO

Perhaps it says something depressing about my lifestyle, but the “adventure” style models and their bottle-like shape weren't my thing. These tend to look like thermoses with flip-top lids and they hold heat incredibly well—to the point that you might scald your lips hours after you fill it. They also have locking, tightly sealed lids that don't leak. They're also typically hand-wash only, and their flip-open lids with their clasps and buttons are a pain to clean.

That said, I'm a big fan of Zojirushi's well-made products, and the mugs I looked at—the SM-SE and the SM-KHE—are no exception. Like the travel-mug cousins of Hermione Granger's magical bottomless bag, the compact Zojis seem to be able to hold a surprising amount of liquid compared to the competition. One caveat with the brand is that there are a slew of different models available, especially on Amazon, so try to find versions where the clasp is below the lip of the spout for greater drinking pleasure (opt for the SE, not the KHE in this case).

In a similar vein, I loved my matte blue Takeya Traveler Mug With FlipLock Lid. It has a little plastic carrying ring that pops out of the lid and is cool but seems bound to snap off one day. Still, I appreciate the rubber circle on the bottom that softens and silences the blow when you set it on a hard surface. Unlike the Zojirushis I tried, the Takeya's tall spout also keeps you from mooshing your face into the lid top when you take a sip. With either brand, one major drawback with this design is that while it'd be fantastic for a long car ride, I'd hesitate to use this kind of mug while driving, as the lid flips up into your field of view every time you take a sip.

This brings us to the “commuter” mug style. Not to be charmed too quickly by the Oxo, I'd ordered a Yeti Rambler, Contigo Autoseal Transit, and Hydro Flask Coffee With Flex Sip Lid, all of which are at least top-rack safe.

Unlike the high-functioning "adventure" category, these more mug-like mugs had better dishwasher tolerance, but they also offered more immediate disappointment. The 14-ounce Yeti, which I bought in an exciting color called King Crab (and I might call matte tangerine) was so squat as to make me want to use two hands to sip from it. At a bowl-like four inches across, it's too awkward to fit into most car cup holders. In a surprisingly short test, it immediately dribbled through its shut lid when tipped 90 degrees. Pass!

Despite being dishwasher safe and sporting a fun, grippy band, the Contigo turned me off even faster. Every time you sip, you need to press a button on the back of the lid. I wasn't wild about this, but what really bugged me was how it trapped a bit of coffee on top of the stopper after almost every sip. I don't think of myself as much of a backwasher, and I'd like to continue to hold on to that illusion, thank you. I also have trouble imagining its lattice-like grip pattern holding up well after a couple years of regular use and dishwashing.

The Hydro Flask was a happy surprise, notably because the lid was a gasket away from being a near carbon copy of the lid on the Oxo (or vice versa). I sent an awkward note to the Oxo rep asking how that could be and they informed me the two brands are owned by the same parent company and have a "cross-brand industrial design team." While the Hydro Flask comes in 12-, 16-, and 20-ounce sizes and has a little flip up handle that will almost certainly outlast the one on the Takeya, I found its contours made for slightly less pleasant drinking—more-suck-than-sip—compared to the Oxo. "You shouldn't have to relearn how to sip," Elisabeth noted.

Regardless of the category, the Oxo was my favorite, the newcomer beating the established competition. First, like the others in the commuter category, it's dishwasher safe, God bless it. This may seem like a no-brainer, but so many travel mugs do not offer this innovation. For me, that means the Oxo spends no time in dishwasher purgatory, and does not need hand-washing of the fiddly bits. You just take it apart and put it all in the dee-dub.

Photograph: OXO

It holds heat plenty well. It's good-looking and fits most hands easily. My two nitpicks are that it doesn't currently come in a size smaller than 16 ounces, which is weird, as its Hydro Flask cousin comes in that nice 12-ounce size. It also feels like Oxo is still figuring out the colors. The color indicator on the web page has a nearly baby-blue color, while the mug in the picture is a pretty deep-sea blue, yet the one I received for testing is a darker, more muted shade of the latter. "Bright red" is almost a happy shade of orange in the photo, but it looks more "Campbell's Tomato" in real life.

I also ran a temperature test in my 70-degree-Fahrenheit kitchen, filling each mug with water just off the boil and sealing their lids closed and then returning four hours later to take their temperature. I'd have to bear in mind that the vessels were of different sizes, as a larger amount of water would be able to stay warmer longer, but there were few surprises. The 14-once Yeti, with its wide mouth and thin lid, was alone at the bottom at 125 degrees; warm but no longer hot. A big middle chunk was occupied by the 16-ounce Contigo, unimpressive for the size at 140 degrees; the Hydro Flask at 144 (not bad for a 12-ounce mug); and then three in the sweet spot, the 17-ounce Takeya, and the 16- and 20-ounce Oxos, at 153, 154, and 157 degrees, respectively. The Zojirushis easily took top honors for heat retention, with 173 degrees for the little guy and 180 for the big fella.

Oddly, this is where it gets a little thorny. Do you want something that hot? My mouth did not at all enjoy sipping 180-degree hot water. Most everyone will need to open a vessel with liquid at that temperature and let it cool off for a while before drinking. Also, anything under 140 degrees is in the danger zone where bacteria can flourish.

With that in mind, after 6.5 hours, I checked again, and the takeaways were that only the Zojirushis were (well) above 140 at 156 and 165 degrees, though the 20-ounce Oxo wasn't far below the mark at 137. If you need your drink to stay hot in a mug for a very long time, the Zojirushis are your safest bet.

One happy surprise that shook things up happened at the end of testing, when I half filled the large Oxo with water, flipped it upside-down and set it in a plastic tub. I fully expected to see the bottom of the tub slowly fill with water, but no! I surrounded it with the Contigo, the Hydro Flask, the two Zojirushis, and the Takeya, all filled with water, inverted and tucked into their own tubs for the night. Elisabeth found my countertop Tupperware party in the morning. She was intrigued to know more about what I'd gotten up to after she went to bed, and I was excited to report that not a drop had leaked out between the six of them overnight.

"Impressive," she said. "Engineers applying themselves to the pressing problems of the world!"

Later, I brought the Oxo and Hydro Flask, both three-quarters full of water, up to my little roof patio, and with one in each hand did a wild dance till my arms hurt trying to make them leak with the lids in the closed position. Impressively, they did not.

While “not leaking” wasn't much of a surprise outcome for the Zojirushi and Takeya, the surprise stability of the “less secure” competition certainly nibbles into their market. In fact, it just about undid my adventure-commuter classification system.

The new Oxo might not be the best mug for absolutely everybody, but it does so many things so well—especially the way it goes in the dishwasher—that overall, it's clearly the best travel mug out there.