Bormioli Rocco Flora

The 25 cl tumbler is the size that passes for everything: water with dinner, soft drinks, a small glass of juice at breakfast. It stands low enough to stay steady among plates and cutlery, and it fits under most taps without you having to tilt it.

One colour or all three? A single shade keeps things calm and works well if your tableware already has a pattern. All three mixed together suit plain white china and make it easy to keep track of whose glass is whose. Alongside the tumblers, the Bormioli Rocco Fiore champagne flute of 17.5 cl belongs to this family; it comes in twelves and is meant for larger gatherings.

Through-coloured glass lets less light through than clear glass, so it is best filled with drinks whose colour does not matter: water, iced tea, lemonade. Wine and beer are better left in clear glass, precisely because you want to be able to look at them.

Outdoors is where these glasses come into their own. On a table in the sun the coloured glass catches the light and casts coloured patches onto the tablecloth. A jug of sangria with plenty of fruit pours nicely from them, and the flute serves for a mimosa at brunch.

The colour sits in the glass itself and not in a layer on the outside, so it cannot flake off or fade in the dishwasher. That is the main difference from sprayed glassware, where the colour does turn dull over time.

Beyond that it is ordinary soda-lime glass: sturdy, easy to replace and dishwasher safe. Place the tumblers upside down in the rack and keep them from resting against one another.

More in this direction can be found among the coloured glasses, where the through-coloured range from every brand sits together. The other series from this manufacturer are shown under Bormioli Rocco glasses. If you are after the same shape in clear glass, take a look at the tumbler glasses or the water glasses, where you can compare by capacity; the matching flute sits among the champagne flutes.