Ecocup Cup 33 cL Review

Overview

The Ecocup 33 cL (sold by its French maker as the ECO 30) was designed to replace disposable plastic cups at festivals, weddings and fairs, not to ride in a backpack. Its appeal for hikers is arithmetic: 27 g, a price that rounds to one euro, and a material that shrugs off drops. The trade-off is everything a purpose-built camp mug has and this doesn’t: a handle, a clip point, a thermal margin for boiling water.

Key Specs

Spec	Detail
Weight	27 g (0.96 oz)
Total capacity	33 cL (11.2 fl oz), to the brim
Usable capacity	25 cL (about 8.5 fl oz)
Height	117 mm
Top / bottom diameter	73 mm / 54 mm
Material	BPA-free polypropylene homopolymer
Temperature resistance	Up to 110°C (230°F)
Dishwasher safe	Yes
Microwave safe	Yes
Stackable	Yes
Made in	France

Performance

Weight and capacity. At 27 g, the Ecocup is roughly half the weight of the UCO Eco Camp Cup, a common budget trail mug that UCO lists at about 2 oz and 12 oz of capacity. The catch is that the headline 33 cL is a brim-full number. The usable volume is 25 cL, which is a generous tea or instant-coffee pour but a small bowl of anything. For oatmeal, a hiker needs a different vessel.

Shape and packing. The cup is a tapered tumbler: 73 mm across the top, 54 mm at the base, 117 mm tall. That taper is the point of the design. The cups nest inside one another, so a stack of them takes little more room than a single cup. For a solo hiker, the shape means one cup can sit inside a pot or mug of similar diameter, but the height makes it a poor fit for tight side pockets and there is no integrated loop, so it rides inside the pack rather than clipped to it.

Hot drinks. The manufacturer rates the polypropylene to 110°C and calls it suitable for tea, coffee, hot chocolate and mulled wine as well as cold drinks. That is above the boiling point of water at sea level, but the cup is a thin-walled tumbler with no handle and no insulation. A fresh pour of boiling water makes the wall hot to hold, and the cup is not a vessel for heating over a flame. Owners of comparable camp cups often single out a handle as the feature that makes hot drinks tolerable; this one doesn’t have one. Pouring water off the boil and letting it settle for a minute helps.

Durability and cleaning. The cup is made in France from polypropylene that the maker describes as highly resistant to shocks and heat, and the material is dishwasher and microwave safe. Event organizers who buy these cups in bulk report that they hold up to repeated washing, and a retailer pitches each cup at hundreds of uses. On a trail, that translates to a cup that can be dropped on granite or crushed under a stuff sack without cracking. Polypropylene is also easy to rinse and doesn’t hold on to flavors the way some silicone does.

Cost. The price is the real story. A single cup is listed at about €1, and bulk packs of hundreds are cheaper per unit. That makes it a cup a hiker can lose, melt, or leave at a hostel without a pang. Few specialty trail mugs can say that.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• 27 g: about half the weight of typical plastic camp mugs
• Roughly €1 per cup
• Stackable tapered shape nests tightly
• Break-resistant polypropylene; dishwasher and microwave safe
• Rated to 110°C for hot or cold drinks
• BPA-free; made in France

Cons

• No handle, so hot drinks mean a hot wall
• No clip loop or lid
• Usable volume is only 25 cL
• Not insulated and not designed for stoves
• Built for events, not trail abuse, and sold mostly in bulk or as a custom-printed item

Who Should Buy This

This is for the gram-counting hiker who wants a throwaway-cheap cup for cold-soaking, electrolyte mixes, trail-town beer or the occasional tea, and for groups, scout troops and trail-angel setups that need a stack of identical cups that survive a bin. It is also a sound choice for a shared basecamp kitchen. Anyone who drinks scalding coffee every morning, wants to eat from the same vessel, or likes a cup that clips to a pack should buy a handled camp mug such as the UCO instead.

Verdict

The Ecocup 33 cL is a cheap, tough, very light cup that does one job well: holding a drink. It lacks the handle and clip point that make a dedicated trail mug pleasant, so it suits cold drinks and cool-to-warm brews better than a boiling morning pour.