Page 38 - Flathead Beacon // 7.9.14

38 | JULY 9, 2014 FLATHEADBEACON.COM
BUSINESS
Building a Better
TRAVEL MUG
Whitefish builder creates
new porcelain and cork coffee mug
Robert Knox of Whitefish holds up
a cork and porcelain travel mug that he desiged in his woodshop and will be selling in the
coming months. JUSTIN FRANZ | FLATHEAD BEACON
BWy MOLLY PRIDDY of the Beacon HITEFISH – As a builder in
the construction industry,
Robert Knox understands the value of a good cup of coffee and a durable travel mug that can keep up with a rough-and-tumble day on the
worksite.
In the many years he’s worked in the industry in Whitefish, Knox went through countless porcelain mugs, metal travel mugs and any other com- bination. The handles on traditional mugs would break, and then he’d be left with a hot cup and no way to hold it.
Metal travel mugs are OK, he said, but they fall apart after a few trips
through the dishwasher. Plus, the me- tallic aftertaste was not a welcome ad- dition to his coffee.
“I didn’t want to drink out of met- al,” he said last week while standing in his woodshop. “And I hated drinking out of plastic, especially hot drinks.”
Finding the perfect mug was al- ways a quest in the back of his mind,
Knox said, but the idea for that mug hit him one day while he was building a fly fishing rod. He got up to get some cof- fee, and walked back to his work table.
“It just hit me: I wanted a porcelain mug wrapped in cork,” Knox said.
Thus the idea for the new Cortiça mug was born. He couldn’t find one online, and there weren’t any patents,
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