Well it's just such a nice, jolly
Well it's just such a nice, jolly, pot-bellied mug and my wife finds it very warming to hold in her hands when she has her tea.  It does take a long time to get to you, though, and since it was a replacement for a favored mug that died an honorable death, cracking in the service of its mistress, I was anxious for it to get here since no suitable interim mug ever really rose to the challenge.<br /><br />I had to come back and take a full star away.  There are two reasons I downgraded the review.  The first was present when it shipped originally, but I decided to leave it alone since we didn't return it.  That is, there was a chip at the base of the handle.  I figured, since it is hand-thrown, which means perfection is difficult, and since it may have been the shipping that chipped it, I wouldn't get into that.  The second has become apparent over time.  When hot tea is made, the handle itself gets extremely hot.  I don't know why it conducts so much heat to the handle.  Maybe the green color is produced by copper in the glaze and the copper carries that heat to the handle, but it's hard to hold that handle until the tea cools down.  It still gets four stars because it remains a jolly pot, but I don't like the way the handle gets so hot at all.
Rating: 4 stars