Vacuum Jug

Most household objects that survive fifty years do so by being quietly redesigned every decade until nothing of the original is left. Stelton's EM77 has kept the same profile since Erik Magnussen drew it in 1977, and it is still the profile you picture when someone says vacuum jug.

The Stelton EM77 vacuum jug holds a litre and keeps drinks hot for 9.5 hours and cold for 19, because the insulation lives in a glass liner rather than in the body you actually touch. That liner sits inside a tougher ABS shell, working on the same principle as any vacuum flask: a sealed gap between two walls that heat struggles to cross. It is also why Stelton tells owners never to scrub the inside. Rinse with plain warm water, wipe with a soft cloth, and keep the bottle brush and the dishwasher away from it, because the glass wall is thin enough to chip.

Two lids come in the box. The tipping stopper is for pouring at the table, and the screw cap seals properly for travel and picnics, where the everyday lid would let a litre of coffee slosh out on the first corner.

At 30cm tall it tucks into a counter corner, and every part of it is replaceable, from the stopper to the glass liner itself. That is a large part of why the design has run since 1977, through more than 100 colourways, and sits in design museum collections instead of being reissued as something else. This one is Cloud.