Pasabahce Tribeca

The question is whether you need the saucer. Without one you have a light glass that fits in any cupboard and that you can just as well use for juice or water. With the oval saucer you serve the whole thing at once, because there is room beside the glass for a spoon, a sugar cube and a biscuit. That mainly helps in a café, since you bring everything in one go. Watch the capacity, because 40 cl is almost double a usual tea glass. If you brew with a tea bag, use two or leave it to steep longer. For smaller servings, the coffee glasses are a more sensible size.

Warm the glass with a splash of hot water before you pour the tea. That not only limits heat loss, it also reduces the stress in the thin wall. Fill to about a centimetre below the point where the rim flares outwards, so you can hold the glass at the top without burning your fingers. For an espresso tonic or a carajillo, fill the glass right up with ice first and only pour afterwards.

Tribeca is made of tempered soda-lime glass, which means it copes with large temperature differences better than untempered glass. Even so, the rule holds: never pour boiling water into a glass that has just come out of the fridge. In the dishwasher the glasses go upright in the top rack and the saucers separately below. Tea staining comes off with hot water and soda rather than with an abrasive cleaner.

The full range from Pasabahce is on the brand page, from everyday tumblers to complete tableware series. If you want a different size, look at the tea glasses, where the smaller models are as well. For a layered coffee with milk, the latte macchiato glasses are taller and narrower, and for a hot cocktail the recipe for irish coffee gives you the right proportions.