Fang Shih and Tian-Yu Wu · CLIENT: Float
Float is a reusable cup designed for drinking bubble tea without a straw. An inner cup holds the bubbles above the tea, so the bubbles and the tea reach the mouth together when the cup is raised. The tea is cooled by the ice above it before it is drunk, which avoids the warmer final sips that are common with straw cups. Float is made by plastic injection molding and silicone injection molding and measures 106 by 106 by 236 millimeters. The aim of the design is to reduce the use of disposable cups and straws.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- FLOAT is a reusable cup that doesn’t need a straw but still can drink bubble tea. The inner cup put the bubbles above the drink, so the tea and bubbles would arrive at our mouth together while we raise our head to drink. Also, in this way, the tea will be cooled by ice before drinking, which solves the problem that the straw cups always let people drink the bottom part of the drink which isn’t cooled by ice piece above the drink.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- 106mm x 106mm x 236mm
- Tags
- reusable, cup, bubble tea, sustainable design
- Production Technology
- plastic injection molding, silicone injection molding
- Design Challenge
- The most difficult part in the process is the adjustments of using fluency. Based on our core concept ”the motivation of continuous using comes from a good user experience", we improved and adjusted hundreds of times in details such as the caliber of the rim and the slope of the inner cup, in order to make user has the best drinking experience.
- Project Duration
- Started from Nov. 2018 to Dec. 2019
- Operation Flow
- FLOAT is a reusable cup that doesn’t need a straw but still can drink bubble tea. The inner cup put the bubbles above the drink, so the tea and bubbles would arrive at our mouth together while we raise our head to drink. Since people make a billion of disposable plastic cups and plastic straw waste while drinking bubble tea, we want to create a experience that is better than the disposable straw cup, and let people be more willing to use reusable cup to purchase bubble tea, and reduce the numbers of disposable plastic cups and straws.
- Research
- “Bubble tea” is an unique street drink culture that is risen in Taiwan since the 1980s. According to media statistics, more than 1.5 billion cups of bubble tea drinks are sold every year in Taiwan, which means there are more than 1.5 billion disposable containers are used every year as well.
Although there are many reusable cups being launched every year in Taiwan, we found that people tend to lower the time of using after buying them. So we did survey, interviews and use mind-mapping to find the reason: the reusable straws are not only difficult to clean, but also not easy to carry around.
That’s why we came up with Float to be the solution to these problems. - Inspiration
- Bubble tea is an unique street drink culture in Taiwan; however, a handful freshness each day brings a billion of disposable plastic cups and plastic straw waste every year. We want to create a experience that is better than the disposable straw cup, and let people be more willing to use reusable cup to purchase bubble tea. reduce the numbers of disposable plastic cups and straws.
- Image Credits
- All Images: Photographer Oni Lai
- Patents
- Patented.
Patent No. M584644
Patent Holder. Wu, Tianyu ; SHIH FANG
Year. 2019
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