💬 Morning chai tastes wrong in any mug except my father's old steel one

I have 1 mug for my morning chai. It was my father's, a dented steel tumbler he used for 20 years. He gave it to me when I got my first flat, along with a cooking pot and a bucket. I thought it was a funny present at the time. I put it in the back of the cupboard. About a month later I ran out of clean cups, took it out, and made tea in it. It tasted different. I thought I was imagining it. I tried again the next morning, in a ceramic mug. That one tasted like nothing. The steel one tasted like home. It's the metal, or the weight, or both. I don't know how a cup can change tea, but it did. Every single morning since. My wife thinks I'm being silly. She says tea is tea. I say, try it, and she hasn't tried it yet. The tumbler has a dent on one side and a small scratch near the bottom. It gets hot at the rim. You have to hold it by the edge with your fingertips, or use a cloth. It's not a practical mug at all. Guests always look at it twice when I serve my own tea in it and give them the nice cups. My brother says it looks like something from a hostel. He's right, it does. A few weeks ago my wife used it to heat up some milk, and I found out about it afterwards. I was almost angry. I stood in the kitchen looking at it, soapy in the sink, and said nothing. She understood. She said sorry. I said it was fine, but I washed it myself and put it back. Nobody else touches it now. It sits on its own hook above the stove. Do you have a cup, a glass or a plate that you use every day, for no reason you can explain? I'd like to know if there are other people like me out there with strange rules about tea. My father is 71. I told him the tumbler still works, and he said, of course it does. He didn't ask if I liked it. He knew. Some things you don't need to say.

My grandfather had a steel tumbler too, with a dent from the day it fell off a motorcycle. Nobody else was allowed to use it, and my aunt would hide it when guests came over. I think it is the weight of the metal and the way it keeps the tea hot against your palm. Does your wife let you take it to the office, or does it stay home?

Same with my coffee cup. It's a chipped white one I bought in Ooty in 2016. Coffee tastes wrong in anything else. I know it's in my head. I did a test once, same coffee in 2 cups, eyes closed. I still picked mine. My mother says it's because the chip is on the side I don't drink from. Maybe she's right. I'll be properly sad the day it finally breaks, to be honest.