Or teacup, for that matter?
Some people prize massive mugs that hold large amounts of coffee and nurse it for hours.
So, why do we slip into these habits?
Why do we want to repeat the familiar?
There's an aspect of selecting cups that we're hardly conscious about.
The mouth comes in contact with the rim and unconsciously drives our preferences when we make a choice.
The fancy ceramic designs with delicate handles and ornate graphics have a different texture when your mouth settles on it. Think about the feeling and you'll recall it.
The same is true of the earthen 'kullar', the terracotta cups that are simply smashed after use.
There's a way your mouth feels around different cups - the thicker the rim and the more the curvature, the more your face 'dips' into it.
Some love it steaming hot - where the liquid is close to scalding temperatures. Others like it lukewarm and a few are perfectly happy to keep sipping on something that has gone completely cold.
You've seen people wrap their hands around hot cups in winter. The warmth from the cup is a source and a daily ritual of pleasure and sustenance.
The morning cup is an ingrained habit. It's makes people less irritable and willing to face up to the day. Delay it and you delay the pickup.
We've built some strange affinities. But it has a cascading impact on the way the day unfolds.
It's the first of many comfort zones we enter on a habitual basis - whether we're aware of it or not.
The Ratan Tata effect
You can't miss him on LinkedIn.
Every day on the feed, you're guaranteed to see at least 2-3 selfies put up by adoring fans.
They've probably waited months for the day.
And it's gone down in their personal history - the few moments they had with him. Captured in a frame where they're listening attentively or gazing at the screen in pride.
What everyone notices about Mr. Tata, however, is the gaunt, slightly bent figure, with the kindly smile.
Everyone else is a footnote - and that's the way it will be because people only notice the famous figures in any picture.
So scrolling through the feed, especially when it was his birthday recently is seeing a succession of pictures of Mr. Tata with dedicated fans.
Personalities like Mr. Tata and the former President Mr. Abdul Kalam are 'like' magnets and used to drum up attention.
Their quotes may be authentic or made up. But that is not the point.
The Ratan Tata effect generates a small spike of attention in a sea of posts which are just pictures. Like this one as well - guilty as charged!
I first began to see one occasionally a few months ago and then, there were breathless comments and congratulatory messages on getting an audience with the great man.
Now, of course, it has become the standard 'bucket list' item.
In most cases, the interactions are little more than an exchange of greetings, which is how this works. How deep can anyone go in a conversation that barely lasts for a minute?
A brush with fame, no matter how fleeting, is irresistible!
Does 31st December matter?
We've had lists, lookbacks, love and loathing for the year gone by.
And yet, when the countdown begins and the clock strikes 12 to indicate that we're in a 'new' year, there's a curious sense of things being exactly the same.
Change, for each one of us comes at different times.
No announcements, no calendar connections.
We see it when students get their final year college marks.
The haves and the have nots.
The ones who get distinctions and the ones who think they've been left behind.
The first time you fall in love.
The birth of a child.
The death of a parent.
The disappointment of losing out on something you worked for years on.
The small victories and moments that you recall after decades.
The music in the car on a long drive to nowhere.
Heartbreak.
The designation that finally gets attached to your name after slogging for years.
And then finding that it doesn't matter in the long run.
Lusting for one possession after another.
Left to languish after the thrill of acquisition passes.
Like forgotten trophies in a musty cupboard. Symbols of victory and pride that seem to be as fleeting as the ceremony and the applause.
They don't come on a schedule or follow the metronome of time.
Some dates we remember.
Others we purposely forget because we don't want to be reminded of what we felt like at the time.
Time, the cliché goes, is the great healer.
We look in a mirror and see a wrinkle we didn't notice before.
Then, we realise that time ripples through our life marking its passage exactly as it pleases.
Tomorrow is a mirage.
Do you have a favorite coffee cup?