The Swirl Cup, Sttoke’s latest embodiment of its world’s first shatterproof ceramic reusable cup tagline.
Australian lifestyle brand Sttoke can be many things at once; conversely, it can be narrowed down and identified by its single niche — the world’s first shatterproof ceramic reusable cup. That was a big claim when the brand started in 2018, but co-founder Samuel Soong knew he needed to set the bar high for the brand to climb even higher. After conquering Melbourne during the brand’s formative years, more products were developed and released as Sttoke’s international presence grew, the latest being the Sttoke Swirl Cup.
Cursory glances suggest another fanciful cup for Instagrammable home corners, yet the story of the Swirl Cup goes beyond its good looks. It was designed to elevate the coffee-drinking experience with thoughtful design. However, its true objective was to benefit coffee farmers and producers at the end of the coffee supply chain. Green (unroasted) coffee beans are usually sampled and assessed for flavour profiles before being purchased by the roasters. Just as champagnes, wines and whiskies require ideal temperatures and conditions to convey their best flavours, coffees belong to that same bracket. The Swirl Cup was designed to maintain temperatures for the longest time possible to avoid multiple brews (most cost incurred) during tasting (otherwise known as cupping in the industry). At the same time, the cup’s parabolic-shaped bottom ensures the coffee aerates and, releases and unlocks its best aromas.
Samuel Soong, co-founder of Sttoke.
With a thoughtful approach and objective, design ingenuity, and input from a World Cup Taster’s Champion, Soong and his team successfully launched a cup that holds its own in both casual and professional settings. Men’s Folio had the opportunity to interview Samuel Soong about the Swirl Cup and its many (smooth) facets.
Hello Samuel, how did the company’s Sttoke name come about before getting into the interview proper?
Ooh, I like this one! The name came from focusing on customers’ emotions towards our product, such as what they would feel when they used our products. The word “stoked (Sttoke)” came about.
The goal was to have our customers feel good about using our product and trust that it delivers what it was designed to deliver. There are no two ways about it: trusting the product and being excited to use it, or, in our case, a beautiful cup consistently delivering good flavour.
What was Sttoke’s vision and dream when it first started in 2018? Fast-forward six years, are they still the same, or have they changed in any way?
Another good one! I think the struggle of starting a business is very similar for many entrepreneurs. We all start with a strong belief in knowing what we want to achieve, but reality always steers us in another direction.
We began our journey with a mission to help people take their first step to sustainability and observe the amount of waste in the market by introducing the best reusable cup to keep the flavour of coffee as it is. While that approached work, COVID slapped us really hard in the face when hygiene was a huge concern during the season.
It was a difficult year for us as no one was interested in a reusable cup in a pandemic. Instead of continuing our efforts toward sustainability, we pivoted into helping our partners, cafes, and roasters in Australia to help with their business with our social media reach.
As we went about that effort, we realised our passion for introducing the flavour profile was much more natural. We had amazing feedback from the market about how great our cups were in keeping the flavour of coffee. It was then we realised that coffee was always our passion; it was the other reason why the idea of a Sttoke cup came about, lining the cup with ceramic to functionally prove to our customers that this is THE coffee cup when you order a coffee-to-go at your favourite cafe below your office.
The Swirl Cup is the latest embodiment of Sttoke’s “World’s First Shatterproof Ceramic”. Apart from being unbreakable, what’s so special about this cup?
The message behind “World’s First Shatterproof Ceramic-lined Cup” is meant to be a necessary reinforcement that Sttoke is a worthy investment, but more than that, it’s really about the ceramic feature that we are looking to highlight.
From the Commuters we designed and launched in 2018, delivering the lightest of flavour notes was the goal and ethos behind the product design. We were very determined for our commuters to have a cup they could use on the go and a cup that they could use on their desk, especially with our 8oz OMNI cups. The detail was down to allowing the lightest of flavour notes, i.e. Panamanian / Ethiopian beans, to flow from the cup to your tongue as the liquid opened up through the wide bevelled rims.
We applied the same principles to the Swirl Cup alongside our ambassador and the 2023 World Cup Taster’s Champion, Young Baek. It was about maintaining flavour, but more than that, it was about enhancing the drinking experience by expressing the aroma of the coffee, making it wholesome.
The brief with Young was simple: Sttoke makes great drinkware that delivers the most flavour very consistently, and his wish was to use the same technology to be applied to cupping bowls, or rather a quality control tool that coffee producers and roasters use to QC their coffee. The goal is to express the best quality in the coffee beans and, more importantly, to share that with as many people as possible, and that was how the Swirl Cup came about.
Two innovations in the Swirl Cup, PureFlav™️ and Parabolic Bottom, are meant to enhance a coffee’s taste and flavour. Tell us how each contributes to that.
Definitely my favourite question! PureFlav(™) is a technology we developed with a German ceramic coating brand to further improve the quality of ceramic lining. We have partnered with this company for a while now through our Commuters. In the many cups we have produced, we have experienced a lot of difficulty producing a ceramic-lined cup as it creates heavy wastage.
We mainly improved the surface technology and ease of application. The “secret” was in the ceramic coating, and in the case of Swirl Cup, it’s giving it a smoother non-stick surface, so the chances of flavour particles imparted are even less.
The parabolic bottom was designed to reference a whiskey glass in the aspect of aroma expression. A simple swirling action of your cup of coffee naturally allows aeration of the coffee while giving a preconception of the flavour before you deliver the first sip to your tongue. The sense of smell plays a big role in the perception of flavour, and the parabolic bottom allows you to activate the taste of your coffee by first sending information to your nose as to what you will be drinking and then taking that sip to enhance the flavour even more.
The bigger excitement behind the Swirl Cup is that its design allows you to see your coffee through the ceramic lining and smell it through the parabolic bottom. The two preconceptions of flavour are further enhanced through the thin rims of the cup, allowing you to taste the lightest flavour notes.
Does this mean that even the traditional Kopi-O will taste better?
[Laughs] I’m afraid not. Because most Kopi-Os are dark roast, the qualities of the coffees are mostly roasted away. But I wouldn’t say it’s a flat no; it highly depends on how good your kopi is roasted; there are such coffees with amazing aromas, although most are not. Yakun (in no way promoting them) does serve some really good coffee; coupled with the design of our cup, you might just enjoy your coffee better! In the end, there’s no magic in the cup; it’s just physics behind every detail, and in our case, mainly allowing the beverage to better express itself in its already great quality. Also, a side shout out to Santino for letting us try some of their best Kopi roasts, and we did try them in the Swirl Cup!
Some of the big inputs for the Swirl Cup came from the 2023 World Cup Taster’s Champion, Young Baek, whom you’ve collaborated with for this project. How did you two meet, and when was the eureka moment for the Swirl Cup?
Our love story, yes! As we submerge ourselves in the coffee industry, meeting baristas is practically an everyday thing, and each barista has their own goals and dreams, which often come up in conversations. We often get baristas approaching us to create a new product together, each person trying to contribute to the industry with a new idea, some of which can be a lot of talk without execution or commitment.
Young was different in his sincerity and, more importantly, his conviction. He was the one person who said, “Hey guys, here’s an idea — I don’t expect to get any credit or anything, but I thought your product was cool, and you guys should do this because of…”, and he then went on to his dream in sharing the flavour worldwide. He was an Australian Cup Taster then, with no more than 1000 followers on his Instagram, but he had a big, sincere heart.
It wasn’t a eureka moment with Young, but rather a progressively proven solid idea. When the initial idea came about, it was a huge no from us as the product was not aligned with our audience. We gave the idea a go by using our 8oz cups, and Young got creative by organising a couple of community activities and events with it.
We saw the heart in what Young truly wanted to do, and along the way, we adopted the idea of a cupping bowl as a cupping cup, the same product that can be used at both producer and professional levels.
Our relationship developed more as he went from training with our “crippled idea” of a cupping cup using our existing 8oz OMNI Cup to training for his world championship to attending the championship altogether.
We could see his heart in the industry, especially in the people he encounters every day, the heart that he gives to the people around him, that sincerity, and it was ten upon ten.
Beyond its good looks and functionality, the Swirl Cup was designed to benefit coffee farmers at the very start of the supply chain. How do the cups help with their daily lives and contribute to a better coffee-drinking ecosystem?
Let’s start by picturing the best cup of coffee you have drank: that single-origin black or white coffee, that depth in the flavour, that smile it puts on your face. A huge part of that experience comes from the producer, the farm itself, not discounting the roasters and baristas.
The better the beans, the more expensive they are. I’ve had the pleasure of drinking Panamanian coffee, the Best of Panama, they called it. One kilogram of those green, unroasted beans costs US$10,000. I had the privilege of sipping it after an industry friend brewed a cup for us to share with a 15g dose.
Imagine how you would feel if my friend had accidently knocked it off the table, the reaction the people around would have given, that shock, that loss of money. Now imagine how the producers would feel wasting that, with every 15g considered an income for them. Like every business, we want to squeeze the most out of the time and money we spend on investing.
That feeling is exactly what Swirl Cup was designed for and to add value to. With our micro approach to keeping flavour and insulation, the Swirl Cup allows producers to showcase the best quality of their beans to as many people as possible, squeezing every second and showcasing every note possible to as many guests and buyers as possible. We also have to keep in mind that producers typically make the least margin in the business; not all of them are rich to begin with.
On the front end, the Swirl Cups are designed with a thin rim and a parabolic bottom, allowing consumers to drink the most expressive bit of the coffee from the producers. So, essentially, the same cup, in its design, allows the best showcase of the work of the coffee supply chain, from the producers to the roasters to the baristas who brew and pour the coffee, ultimately allowing consumers to enjoy all their work from farm to cup, literally. More than that, it met the objective of both Young and us: to share the flavour, good flavour, consistently, with as many people as possible.
You’ve given more ways than one to approach the Swirl Cup, whether you’re an everyday drinker, home coffee enthusiast, barista, or coffee roaster. Was that one of the goals when designing the cup and crafting its messaging — to be inclusive and diverse?
Yes, I did. Most would say we have been overambitious in trying to appeal to both professional and everyday coffee drinkers. But that is what we held on to from the very beginning of this journey; it’s the fuel for why we do what we do.
Coffee as a beverage has many cultures and lifestyles. It’s our grandfather’s social beverage, it’s our parents’ daily fuel to get that daily bread, it’s our friends’ therapy, it’s a professional’s ambition, it’s another person’s community. In saying all that, I got to experience them through coffee, with coffee, and, more importantly, with the people.
I feel coffee can be professional; it can also be casual, and I love that about the industry. The industry wants to share its craft with and to the world in hopes that people appreciate their effort. At the same time, everyday consumers want to experience and enjoy the wider craft the industry has grown into, i.e. the interiors and exteriors of a cafe, the art around pouring a good flavour, the detail of latte art, and the service behind a bar. Coffee is already inclusive and diverse.
Our role is as simple as being a vessel, a vessel to connect both ends. We are a bridge to break the walls, a portal of connection, all through the product that we offer and the community that we create with it.
It’s been a month since Sttoke’s large-scale activation at Paragon. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the highest), how ambitious was this campaign and did it deliver on its objectives?
It was an amazing experience. We were 11/10 ambitious and delivered 9/10. One point was that it was our first time telling a story on such a large scale, and there’s a lot to learn from it. Another point was being overly ambitious and saying it’s okay if we were not perfect. And if we may be fair and kind to ourselves, we will never be perfect.
We have essentially created an almost coffee-brewing competition-like experience in a mall for the wider audience, who has no idea why there is a competition for coffee “making.” Despite the problems and imperfections, we couldn’t be more thankful to everyone involved. From the ambassadors to our partners and their partners, every bit of it made sense. It was an exhausting 12 days, to say the least. We can still picture it vividly: operating 12-13 hours a day, the smell of the fragrance, the music we were playing — it’s still in our minds.
We were exceptionally proud to be able to share coffee at an angle that Singapore needed to hear, that is, to slow down. We had designed 70% of the set-up space to tell exactly that story, to engage with your senses, and the only way to do that was to slow down.
We were presenting competition-grade coffee, niche expensive fragrance brands, curated music, and all that could easily be a waste of money and time if the audience walked through the experience as though they were window shopping. But we are most thankful to Singapore for their willingness to listen to our experience guide from one room to another. You can see them folding their hands in the first pink room, to being soft and open to listen towards the last grey room. The most magical moment that all of our team appreciated was receiving a thank you for the reminder to slow down.
Going back to objectives, we have most definitely succeeded in telling the story we intended to and, more importantly, allowing the guests to take away a piece of that experience back home.
What next steps are planned for the Swirl Cup and the company?
The launch activation in Singapore is just the beginning. More efforts will be required to work even closer with the producers and further develop the program to work with them.
Young will share more flavours and stories with it through the efforts of his newly found venture, Ultimate, through its academy and competition. We’ll be adding more products and accessories to further enhance the purpose of what the Swirl Cup was designed for, and we are most excited about that.
As a company/brand, following the success of Singapore, we’re already planning to replicate the efforts in other countries, bringing both Young and the Swirl Cup around to share with the world our mission: build a like-minded community, connecting with people who believe the inclusivity and diversity that we are trying to share, or as our team like to say, making more flavourful connections.
Once you are done with this story, click here to catch up with our May 2024 issue.
RELATED ARTICLES
The Ballad of The Mechanical Timepiece
