We spend a lot of time on this journal sharing the stories of the coffee producers we work with – the people and places behind every bag we roast. But the producers aren't the only partners we're proud of. From the equipment on our shelves to the cups on our café tables, we work with companies whose values and craft we genuinely admire. This is the first in a series of spotlights on those partners, and we're starting with one close to our hearts.
If you've spent any time in specialty coffee shops – in London, Berlin, Wellington, or pretty much anywhere good coffee is being poured – chances are you've already drunk from an Acme cup. You might not have clocked the name stamped on the base, but you'll have noticed the weight of it. The way it sits in your hand. The fact that your flat white looked particularly good in it.
That's not an accident. Acme cups are designed by people who've spent their careers behind espresso machines and behind café counters – and it shows. We use them across our own Ozone cafés, and we're proud to stock the full range for anyone who wants that same quality at home or in their own venue.
Here's the story behind them, and why they've become the cup of choice for specialty coffee worldwide.
Born in Wellington's café scene
Acme was founded in 2011 by Jeff Kennedy and Bridget Dunn – the pair behind Caffè L'affare, one of Wellington's most influential coffee businesses. After years of importing what were considered the best cups on the market, they saw an opportunity to design something better. Something shaped by real café experience rather than just industrial design.
The timing turned out to be perfect. Shortly after Acme launched, ACF – the Italian manufacturer whose cups dominated specialty coffee globally – closed its doors. Cafés everywhere suddenly needed a replacement, and Acme was already making a strong case for itself in New Zealand's notoriously high-standard coffee scene.
Today, the company is run by Megan Wyper and Paddy Kennedy, who between them bring over 30 years in hospitality. They took ownership in 2022 and have continued the founding ethos while expanding the range well beyond espresso cups into mugs, plates, bowls, and cutlery. There are now millions of Acme cups in circulation across cafés, restaurants, and homes worldwide.
Designed by coffee people, for coffee people
Here's the thing about Acme that separates them from most tableware brands: every design decision comes through a hospitality lens. These aren't ceramicists guessing at what a barista might want. They're coffee professionals solving problems they've lived with for years.
Take the Classic Range cup. The smooth inner gradient isn't just an aesthetic choice – it gives milk a natural surface to follow when you're pouring latte art. The thick base retains heat. The handle is sized for hands that are pulling shots all day. And the porcelain itself is twice-fired at high temperatures for the kind of durability that survives commercial dishwashers, busy services, and the occasional fumble.
It's the sort of attention to detail you only get when the people designing the product are the same people who'd be frustrated by a poorly designed one.
The Classic Range – the café workhorse
If you've seen Acme cups in a café, it was probably the Classic Range. These are the cups that built the brand, and they remain the go-to for espresso-based drinks across specialty coffee.
The range spans four sizes. The Mini (70ml) is built for espresso and macchiato – small, precise, and satisfying. The Small (150ml) is the classic flat white cup, and a particular favourite if you believe a flat white should actually be flat-white-sized. The Medium (190ml) suits cappuccinos and slightly milkier pours, while the Large (280ml) handles lattes, bigger milk drinks, and the kind of generous hot chocolate you want on a cold morning.
Each cup pairs with a matching saucer, and the range comes in a palette of colours drawn from New Zealand's natural landscape – from Milk (a warm, slightly off-white) and Dolphin (a versatile grey) to Whale (a deep, calming blue) and Feijoa (a fresh green named after the fruit that fills NZ backyards every March).
If you're fitting out a café or upgrading your home espresso setup, the Classic Range is where most people start – and often where they stay. Browse the full Classic Range here.
The Bobby Mug – for the home coffee ritual
The Bobby Mug is probably the most popular Acme product we sell for home use, and it's easy to see why. It's a generous mug with a gorgeous handle and shape that's perfect for wrapping your hands around – the kind of cup that makes a Saturday morning pour-over or a lazy afternoon tea feel like a proper moment.
Available in a 300ml medium and a 400ml large, the Bobby works beautifully for filter coffee, tea, or just about anything you'd want to drink slowly and enjoy. It's also one of the most giftable pieces in the range – the Kawakawa (a rich dark green inspired by native New Zealand bush), Whale, and Milk colourways all look striking on a kitchen shelf or a café table.
For home coffee drinkers, the Bobby is our top recommendation. It's the mug the Ozone team reaches for when we're making coffee for ourselves, and there's a reason it keeps selling out in certain colours. Shop the Bobby Mug.
Beyond espresso: the wider Acme range
While the Classic cups and Bobby Mugs are the pieces most people know, Acme's range has grown considerably over the years.
The Roman Range is their more contemporary collection – a finer, slimmer profile designed with lighter-roasted, more delicate espresso in mind. If you're the kind of person who drinks a lot of filter or lighter single origins as espresso, the Roman cups are worth a look. They come in Milk, Kawakawa, and the newer Kōkako 002 – a soft, dusky blue inspired by the plumage of one of New Zealand's native forest birds. Explore the Roman Range.
The Union Mug is a nod to the classic New Zealand cafeteria mug – originally produced by Crown Lynn Potteries and used by union workers from the 1950s onwards. Acme's version brings that simple, nostalgic shape into modern porcelain. At 230ml, it's a great size for lattes, filter coffee, or a solid cup of tea. Shop the Union Mug.
The Tulip Cup (170ml) sits neatly between a flat white and a long black – versatile enough for either, and a smart option if you want one cup that handles a range of drinks without over- or under-sizing any of them. View the Tulip Cup.
Colours that tell a story
One of the things that makes Acme feel distinct from other coffee cup brands is the colour palette. Rather than offering generic whites, blacks, and greys, every Acme colour is named after something from New Zealand's natural world – and each comes with a story.
Kawakawa takes its rich green from the native bush that grows in Wellington backyards. Rātā is a deep, warm red inspired by the native tree whose blooming signals the start of a New Zealand summer. Penguin – their black – is named after the little penguins that inhabit the NZ coast, dressed for every occasion. Even Milk, their white, is deliberately warmer in tone than a standard bright white. It's a subtle detail, but it's the kind of thing that makes a set of cups feel considered rather than clinical.
For café owners thinking about their visual identity, the Acme colour range offers a genuine way to bring personality to the table without compromising on quality. And for home users, mixing a couple of complementary colours – Kawakawa and Milk, say, or Dolphin and Whale – is an easy way to make your morning coffee setup look intentional.
Built to last – in every sense
There's a line on Acme's website that stuck with us: the most sustainable piece is the one you never need to replace. It's a simple idea, but it runs through everything they do.
Their porcelain is twice-fired at high temperatures specifically so it can handle the daily punishment of a busy café – commercial dishwashers, stacking, the odd clatter. That durability isn't just practical, it's an environmental position. A cup that lasts years in a high-volume café is a cup that doesn't end up in landfill.
The thoughtfulness goes deeper than the product itself. Acme's manufacturing partners operate using solar power, with one facility generating close to 100% of its own energy. Their European warehouse runs on rooftop solar panels. They're an accredited Living Wage employer and use plastic-free packaging throughout their supply chain.
Then there's the B Range – cups with minor cosmetic blemishes that don't quite meet Acme's visual standards but are perfectly functional. Rather than discarding them, Acme supplies these cups to coffee festivals across Europe and New Zealand to replace single-use cups. Attendees borrow a cup, return it at the end, and it gets washed and reused the following year. At the Nordic Coffee Fest alone, the B Range prevents around 4,000 disposable cups from becoming waste each event.
As a certified B Corp, this kind of approach matters to us. It's one thing to partner with a company that makes beautiful, functional products. It's another to partner with one whose values around sustainability, fair wages, and waste reduction align with our own. Acme ticks both boxes.
Why Ozone stocks Acme
We're a New Zealand-born company. So is Acme. That shared heritage runs deeper than geography – it's a shared approach to specialty coffee that values craft, community, and not taking yourself too seriously while still caring intensely about the details.
We use Acme cups in our own cafés because they're genuinely the best cups we've found for the job. The latte art pours well. They hold heat. They survive the kind of service volumes our Shoreditch and London Fields sites put them through. And they look good doing it.
We stock the full Acme range online because we think anyone making good coffee at home – or setting up their own café – deserves access to the same quality. Whether it's a single Bobby Mug for your morning filter or a full set of Classic cups and saucers for a café fit-out, we've got you covered.
Browse the full Acme collection at Ozone.
And if you're a wholesale customer looking to outfit your venue, get in touch with our wholesale team – we'd love to help.