bubba brands Envy Tumbler and HERO Bottle review

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I’m a big fan of drinking… tea that is. 🙂 When I’m not sipping hot tea, I’m gulping iced tea. During daytime work hours, I take my 8 oz glass mug to the hot/cold water dispenser, fill it up and bring it back to the small microwave in my cubicle to get the already warm water boiling for tea. In the evening hours at home, I fill up a 12 oz Tervis mug with iced tea. Since I don’t drink just one cup of tea in the morning or one mug of iced tea at night, it’s a constant trek back and forth to replenish my beverage. When I was contacted by bubba brands to see if I would be interested in reviewing their Envy Tumbler and HERO Bottle, I was more than happy to accept their offer. Let’s see if these products are better alternatives to my existing beverage containers.

Note: Images can be clicked to view a larger size.

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As I mentioned above, I use Tervis mugs at home. I love Tervis products and have been using them for many years. I had never heard of the bubba brands products, but when I first saw the Envy Tumbler, Tervis immediately popped in my mind. The Envy Tumbler has the same dual wall design that keeps warm drinks warm and cold drinks cold without the annoying condensation (sweating) that happens with normal glasses.

The bubba 24oz Envy tumbler is made of Eastman Tritan, which is BPA free. After my adventure with breast cancer, I make it a point to stay away from plastics which are not BPA free because I don’t want to worry about chemicals leeching into my drinks. And although the Envy can be used with both hot and cold liquids, I only used it with cold because I still won’t use hot beverages or food in plastic containers.

The Envy tumbler is very nice and although it isn’t available with all the neat fabric patches and graphics like Tervis, it feels just as nice in hand and costs almost half as much.

The bubba 16oz HERO bottle also has a dual wall design, but it’s made of stainless steel and can keep drinks hot for 8hrs and cold 24hrs. The HERO that was sent to me has a nubby rubber grip around the center that allows you to get a firm hold on the bottle.

Note: both the Envy and HERO are sized to fit in most car cup holders.

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Unlike with Tervis tumblers, the Envy comes with a lid. Both the Envy and HERO lids have an easy open / close flip top.

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With the Envy, you can use the tumbler with or without the lid because the edge is smooth and doesn’t feel uncomfortable to your lips when drinking. The lid is just as comfortable to drink from. Probably more so as you don’t have to worry about ice getting in your way.

The top flips open with a flick for easy drinking and closes securely with the rubber coated stopper. You would think that the tumbler would be drip free once the lid is closed. Unfortunately, the design of the lid is not 100% leak free. Check out the image above. See that small hole in the center below the hinge point for the flip top? Nothing plugs that hole when the top is closed. That means if you turn the tumbler upside down, liquid will dribble out.

One other thing I noticed is that the opening in the lid is not quite large enough to accommodate a standard sized straw.

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A rubber gasket keeps the lid securely in place and the simple design makes for easy cleaning. You can also get your hand inside the tumbler for washing. Or you can just put it in the dishwasher.

The Envy Tumbler worked great for my evening iced tea and holds twice as much as my Tervis mug.

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The HERO Bottle is close to perfect. Unlike the Envy’s lid design, the HERO’s lid is drip free. The small hole gets plugged when the top is closed.

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A rubber seal inside the screw on lid keep liquids from leaking even when turning the bottle upside down and shaking vigorously.

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To test the HERO, I filled the bottle with hot tap water, put the lid on and set aside. I then boiled some water on the stove. Once boiling, I poured out the hot tap water and refilled with the newly boiled water. I then put a tea bag in the bottle with the string hanging over the side so I could easily remove it later. I then screwed on the lid, put the bottle in my bag and went to work. An hour or two later, I flipped open the top and poured the tea into my glass mug. It was still steaming and too hot to drink. Nice! I was able to drink a little at a time through out the morning and never needed to heat it up in the microwave.

According to bubba, the HERO is supposed to be able to keep liquids hot for 8hrs. My only test for this was to fill up the bottle with boiling water, screw on the lid and not open it again until 11hrs later at which point the liquid inside was only warm. I realize that test is 3hrs past the time they rate, but I’m not sure that the liquid would be steaming hot at 8hrs. Probably just very warm. That’s perfectly fine in my opinion. If you’re going to take a bottle of hot tea, coffee, etc with you, I would assume you’d drink it well before 8hrs.

My only complaint about the HERO is that it doesn’t hold enough 😉 I want a 24 oz version. Luckily they bubba does sell dual wall stainless steel bottles in several capacities, including 24 oz. I’ll be placing an order ASAP.

I’m very happy with bubba brands beverage holders and am glad to recommend them. They are high quality products at very reasonable prices.

Update 05/20/15

I actually don’t know what happened to either of these items. I think they ended up going to in one of my famous gadget giveaways at my day job. It’s not that I didn’t like them, I actually liked the Hero bottle quite a bit. But I found that it didn’t hold enough so I ended up buying two larger 20 ounce Hero bottles that look like they’ve been through a battle, but still work great at keeping hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold. I highly recommend these beverage holders.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Bubba Brands Inc. Please visit their site for more info.

 

Product Information

Price:ENVY Tumbler $10.98, HERO Bottle $9.98
Manufacturer:Bubba Brands Inc.
Retailer:Shop Bubba
Pros:
  • Very affordable
  • Quality construction
  • HERO bottle is drip free
Cons:
  • ENVY lid can leak

15 thoughts on “bubba brands Envy Tumbler and HERO Bottle review”




  1. Gadgeteer Comment Policy - Please read before commenting
  2. i just got the 24 ounce Envy and when i went to drink my coffee it SPLATTERED ALL OVER MY FACE! >_<

    i dont get why they would purposely design something to carry liquids with an un-pluggable hole in the top…..theres even a strange open notch OVER the hole making it even more easy to spill

    WTF?

    i wasted my money!

  3. @RM I’m drinking out of the Envy tumbler right now and have not had that issue. I can see how it might happen though if you filled it completely full and then tipped the tumbler back at an extreme angle. I drink out of mine as if I’m drinking from an open topped glass instead of a water bottle or something like that.

  4. I think the Bubba is great at keeping liquids really cold and I was SUPER excited with it for about a month until the sippy straw (not the model you reviewed) broke, the rim cracked thus leaking liquids. Unfortunately, I contacted Bubba but they made it such a hassle to get replacements or parts, I just gave up.

  5. I just got the 24 oz. Hero by Bubba from Amazon 2 weeks ago. I have a few 20 oz. insulated cups by other brands, and by the time I put enough ice in them to keep the water cold, I don’t have as much water as I want. So I really went for the 24 oz. Hero and the reviews have proven perfect on this cup/thermos.

    It has never leaked, as I toss it on the floor of the truck, car and boat. I am not concerned with scratches and paint coming off, as it rolls all over the boat floor the last two times we went out in it. Along with rolling through sand when we got out on the beach and back into the boat. It has scratched the paint, but the Hero has lived up to it’s name. I am thrilled with how good it keeps water cold even in the sun on a boat floor all day.

    I went back to Amazon to write a review and they are sold out of all colors in the 24 oz. size. I guess I got lucky getting it. It is easy to drink from too.

  6. @Julie,
    They still work perfectly and don’t leak or drip! I love that knowing I can lay it down and not even worry about it leaking.

    I saw quite a few reviews on Amazon where people were upset the paint was scratched when it came in. Mine was under the sticker and I expected the paint would not last long even if I babied it. It’s just a color stripe anyway.

    I do wonder how long the snap lid will keep working, because I open it and sip a lot. But I saw no reviews about it failing with use. It does the job like I hoped. Thank you for mentioning the Hero and doing the review!

  7. From the 16 oz Hero, has anyone ran into mold build-up from the upper inside portion of the mug where the plastic meets the stainless steel. Constantly have to run my fingernail through the seam to clean it out as best as I can.

  8. @tanmans, I have not yet. But that is a good area to keep a check on. It it must me, but I would bleach my lid every so often. I know people don’t like to use bleach, but I don’t like to drink funk either.

  9. Next time ya check a bottle, like the hero from bubba. Ya should drink several drinks out of it that have some color(not H20) so ya can notice all the dribble drops on ya shirt. I bought 2, one for my dad 2. He has same problem, coffee gets caught on rim with every sip an builds up, then drips off the back an frt side. Gravity? Manufacturer dident ck cup well.

  10. I paid what I though was an exorbitant price for my Bubba Hero. But I reasoned that, if it worked half as good as advertised, it would be well worth the price. Well, after a few weeks, I discovered that the lid does, indeed, leak. The problem seems to be in the O-ring washer inside the lid. I have to check it every time I use it to make sure the ring is properly seated. Then, after I twist the lid on, I will turn the tumbler upside down over a sink or wastebasket to check if it is leaking or not. I ruined a lot of clothes before I figured out this little glitch in the design.

  11. I purchased my hero mug for use at work. The claim that it would keep beverages hot got 8hours was the main point. Well here I am a little over 5 hours into my work day and my coffee is little more yah like warm with 3 hours to go. I bought this mug to replace a fairly new mug that after just a couple hours my coffee was almost cold. Needless to say even though my Hero mug kept it hot a little longer the gain in time was not worth the extra cost of the Hero was money lost. The other features are good but cold coffee isn’t. Thank you.

  12. i bought a bubba stainless water bottle 24 oz to use at the gym used it twice and the hinge that holds the top on broke freaking junk it came with a lifetime guarantee bullshit i called they refused to honor it false advertising they said they only guarantee the actual bottle not the top i do not recommend this product the top had a built in ring i assumed to hook it to your gym bag junk junk junk bull guarantee typical china made junk

  13. This is late coming but I thought I’d post in case anyone else had this issue.
    I’ve got 3 of these bubbas. And every single one of them gets crud/mold in the gap at the top of the bottle (not the lid, the bottle). The only way I’ve found to completely remove the gunk is to hand wash and use a toothbrush (that I use only for this purpose) with long bristles so I can reach inside that gap.
    Other than that issue, it’s a great mug and I’ve really had no other issues other than a minor leak once or twice when I didn’t put the O-ring back in completely.

    It still bothers me because I know other people have to have the same issue with the mold/gunk and I probably wouldn’t have noticed except once while washing a chunk fell out. It disgusts me to think how long I used this without noticing that problem.

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