Before I studied ceramics I never even considered the cup I was drinking from. I did not come from a tea culture and I used to take my daily espresso at a bar with colleagues, from the normal commercial little cups they give in Italy.
Coming to England opened to me an amazing possibility of exploration both in beverages and in containers. I started to make my own cups and in the struggle of the technical difficulty of throwing, the rim was the last thing I mastered. It was a miracle if I even got to the finished rim!
I learnt to judge the aesthetics and feel of my rims only in my third year at college, when I had gained enough skill to be able to consider all the elements of my finished product.
You can see in the picture a progression from the thicker one to the wobbly one to the more elegant one. I get a lot of good feed back for the pleasure in drinking from my cups and the thin rim is always mentioned.
I find now very unpleasant to drink from cheap industrial mugs and all the ones bough years ago sit unused in the back of the cupboard and I see even my children reach for the thin handmade ones.