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Mr. Sato decides to go out for a cup of coffee…with a giant 20-pound Starbucks mug!

Kay Dec 5, 2015
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This week, Starbucks Japan released a giant US$700 ceramic mug, and naturally, we had to order one and get Mr. Sato to do something crazy with it!

The “Big Logo Mug”, which was released for sale exclusively through Starbucks Japan’s online store starting December 1, is definitely a hefty piece of pottery. And not only is it huge, it also comes with an eye-popping price tag of 86,400 yen (US$703.64)! Seriously, who would be buying this? Well, as it turns out, plenty of people were interested in the oversized mug, and the item quickly sold out the day it was released.

We too couldn’t resist ordering one ourselves and sharing our experience with you, so here’s our report on Mr. Sato’s adventure taking the mug out for a cup of coffee.

▼ Here’s the mug, as advertised on the site. It arrived the very next day!

photo: Starbucks Japan online shop

▼ We expected it to be big, but we couldn’t help being impressed with how big it was!

▼ So…heavy! The product description says it weighs 9.5 kilograms (20.9 pounds)!

Now, while they’re calling this product a mug, apparently it’s not designed to be used as an actual cup and you’re technically not supposed to pour liquid in it. But we really, really wanted to try having Starbucks coffee with the mug, so we decided to have Mr. Sato take the enormous cup with him to a Starbucks store. And what better place to do that then at the Starbucks in front of the Shibuya scramble crossing, one of the busiest places in all of Japan?

▼ Here’s Mr. Sato on his way to Shibuya on the subway with the mug.

▼ Here we are inside the train. Yup, the mug definitely catches the eye.

Walking to the station and taking the subway while carrying around the heavy mug wasn’t exactly easy. By the time Mr. Sato reached Shibuya, he was really ready for that cup of coffee. Oh, and it might just have been our imagination, but we’re pretty sure we got quite a few surprised stares from passers-by on our way to Shibuya!

▼ Phew, we finally made it to the Starbucks in Shibuya!

▼ Now we were ready to order!

But when we tried to order our coffee, the staff at the counter were totally thrown by the mug and asked us to wait a moment while she went to get someone in charge. Here’s how Mr. Sato’s conversation with (whom we assumed was) the store manager went:

Mr. Sato: Can I have some coffee, please?

Staff: I’m very sorry, sir, but we can’t put liquids in this mug.

Mr. Sato: It’s not possible to get coffee in this mug?!

Saff: The inside surface of the mug hasn’t been appropriately coated, so there’s a chance that it could leak.

Mr. Sato: I see. Hmm… But I really wanted to drink coffee with this, though.

Staff: We’re very sorry, sir.

In short, although they were extremely polite about it, they made it clear that they couldn’t serve us coffee in the mug. But we couldn’t just give up! So, we decided to just order some coffee and pour it into the mug ourselves. The largest size they serve at this store was a tall, so we ordered one and took a seat on the second floor where we had a nice view of the Shibuya crossing. Not surprisingly, we attracted a lot of attention with our mug in tow.

▼ We still couldn’t get over how big it looked next to the coffee cup!

▼ In this, it looks like there’s hardly any coffee…

▼ And now to actually drink it! The mug was so heavy, it was a struggle to lift it.

Okay, so Mr. Sato ended up really just licking the coffee, because if he tried any harder, he would have fallen backwards with the weight of the mug.

▼ And here’s a video of the whole experience:

So, our conclusion for Mr. Sato’s outing with the (amazingly heavy) Starbucks Big Logo Mug is that you really probably shouldn’t try to drink out of it.

Thanks for all the heavy-duty carrying and lifting, Mr. Sato. And we hope you got to enjoy a nice cup of coffee in the end after all the hard work!