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We’re proud to introduce a collaborative coffee cup created with Dor & Tan — makers whose work balances handmade craft with thoughtful function. Designed specifically for speciality coffee drinkers, each cup reflects a shared approach to process, material, and the enjoyment of everyday ritual. In this Q&A, we speak with Viola, co‑founder and potter at Dor & Tan, about the studio’s beginnings, their approach to craft, and the thinking behind our collaborative coffee cup.
The beginnings of our studio were to create pieces for the table and home with more purpose. A desire to break away from the disposability of modern life, and to create objects with a more personal connection. Not just an item picked off a shelf, used, and forgotten about because there is no grounding to where it was made, how it was made or who made it. We feel that design is important to prevent pieces from ageing and being discarded.
The 7 years we had the studio in Cornwall mainly influenced us in form and colour. We like to go out and take photos of nature and landscapes, which we think influenced us subconsciously to create a glaze palette as calming and serene as Cornwall is; dune grasses, warm sand tones, strata in cliff edges and vast oceanic landscapes. Since we moved the studio to Sheffield 3 years ago, we’ve enjoyed roaming in the beautiful nearby Peak District, and have become acquainted with its history of traditional crafts. This has moved us more towards functionality, looking for more niche use items, and building our glaze palette. The focus on use is also partly because of our newly opened coffee shop next to the studio, Kilnfolk, which has opened up lots of conversation with baristas over cups and saucers, and why we created the flat white cup.
Originally, we were just a family-run studio with just the four of us. Sharron and Peter (Matt’s parents) have since semi-retired from making pots, but they still help us with the running of the studio. They are also in the process of setting up their new studio in St Ives. In Sheffield, we now have additional potters in our studio team; Holly and Julia, who, alongside my partner Matt and me, run all the making and shop jobs, including handcrafting every piece, designing, handling, firing, glazing, and packing.
Our Cornish white clay was the very first clay we used to make all our pieces. It has a really lovely sandy colour to it, which is nice and smooth in texture. We have paired this clay with a simple tin gloss glaze since the beginning, which we still use now for our core tableware range. It is classic and forgiving due to its simplicity, which we think works in any interior. But I do feel that our ‘speckle’ cup range in our 5 satin glazes of calming natural hues defines our offering now. The feel of this glaze is like a smooth ocean-washed pebble, and the flecks of basalt in the clay are reminiscent of spontaneous patterns found in nature.
The decision initially was simply because we enjoyed it. There is something so cathartic about getting your hands on a lump of clay and forming something with your bare hands. Much like making a load of bread from dough. From this, it showed us the vast difference between having a handmade piece that isn’t completely perfect, and one that is created completely by a machine. One has warmth and character, and the other feels utilitarian and cold.
90% of our glazes are made in-house with our recipes, with all materials sourced from UK companies. Our clays are sourced from Cornwall, Bath and Stoke-on-Trent.
The connection actually started with Origin, when we were throwing in a tiny studio in our back garden in St Ives. We took some of our very first batches of cups to the Origin coffee shop in Porthleven for a photoshoot and a few days later Tom got in touch with us to say he would like to work together. With it being such early days, we pivoted to creating more cups that were designed with various coffee drinks, like espresso. It stuck after that, and we found it more fun designing and making cups with a distinct purpose, which we have done for many years now. We are lucky that we can just pop into our coffee shop throughout the day now to enjoy speciality coffee when we’re busy working in the pottery.
All of our materials to create our pottery are sourced within the UK to keep transport emissions down. Working with clay to create pottery is an old and traditional process which naturally ends up being all about recycling. If the clay isn’t fired and dries out, it can be wet down and reused. We have also been donating to Surfers Against Sewage since our inception, whose work has made us all very conscious of plastic use. We have had no plastics in our packaging, and our deliveries are Co2 offset.
We had a faceted design in our beaker form, which we really liked; classic and simple, much like French glassware. When we opened our café, we really needed the perfect flat white cups for service, so we created a shorter, cut-down version of this design with the right capacity, which also stacks nicely on top of a home espresso machine. We used our white clay from St Agnes, Cornwall, which is processed by a really nice guy who lives on the cliffside.
After working closely with our baristas, we adjusted the design a few times. The most important changes were probably the curved interior, designed for making pouring latte art smoother and easier.
