Camel vacuum flasks

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mbanu
Posts: 962
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Mon Sep 06, 2021 11:48 am

Wasn't sure whether to put these in Miscellaneous or not, but since vacuum flasks and Thermoses are sort of a kettle substitute for when there's no outlet, I thought they might fit here.

I think the Camel variety are interesting because of how strongly they are associated with Hong Kong. Most vacuum flasks don't seem to have that sort of connection anymore -- a Thermos or Stanley might be made anywhere nowadays.

Anyone have any experience with these?

Edit*: Nice link on them by Industrial History HK -- https://industrialhistoryhk.org/31576-2/
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pedant
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Mon Sep 06, 2021 12:41 pm

is there any connection to camel cigarettes?
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wave_code
Posts: 575
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Sun Nov 21, 2021 10:06 am

Recently stumbled across these for sale... so they are still made, and supposedly still made in Hong Kong. I don't know if production stopped at some point and restarted or if the company was sold to someone or not... either way seems they are kind of doing a modernization move, capitalizing on a classic brand with updated styling, I guess to go up against or fill the market of companies like Kleen Kanteen or Hydroflask that are really popular at least here in the West. I might pick one of these up though- I like that its glass interior with metal outer. Most of the glass thermoses I come across are pure glass or have the glass exposed which is worrisome for bike commuting and getting knocked around. I use a steel one at the moment - great for water, really not good at all for tea for even carrying around all day, much less doing thermos brewing if you are busy.

Yue Hwa carries them, and they do ship international- https://shop.yuehwa.com/collections/cam ... ask-series
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Balthazar
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Sun Nov 21, 2021 11:20 am

wave_code wrote:
Sun Nov 21, 2021 10:06 am
Recently stumbled across these for sale... so they are still made, and supposedly still made in Hong Kong. I don't know if production stopped at some point and restarted or if the company was sold to someone or not... either way seems they are kind of doing a modernization move, capitalizing on a classic brand with updated styling, I guess to go up against or fill the market of companies like Kleen Kanteen or Hydroflask that are really popular at least here in the West. I might pick one of these up though- I like that its glass interior with metal outer. Most of the glass thermoses I come across are pure glass or have the glass exposed which is worrisome for bike commuting and getting knocked around. I use a steel one at the moment - great for water, really not good at all for tea for even carrying around all day, much less doing thermos brewing if you are busy.

Yue Hwa carries them, and they do ship international- https://shop.yuehwa.com/collections/cam ... ask-series
Thanks for the tip. I too am a fan of glass interior thermoses for tea brewing, and at 0.45L these come in an attractive size for me.

I've ordered from Yue Hwa a couple times before never noticed these thermoses. Might just get one (or two) of these.

By the way, and totally random: If anyone's making an order from Yue Hwa I recommend picking up a pair (or ten) of these scissors. I've been using and abusing them for years, best pair of scissors I've owned... Good price too, bought mine for about the same at a convenience store in China. Apologies for getting off topic.
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wave_code
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Wed Jan 11, 2023 11:44 am

well after waiting months for my Camel flask to finally be released from customs and after taking a good while for it to initially ship from Specialties Express it is here... and super disappointing. The lid is an integrated stopper and it twists to lock rather than screwing shut or having a separate internal gasket. Only thing is, you don't twist and lock but also keep twisting to open - so there is no 100% locked position where it couldn't potentially also get twisted open in your bag. If it were actually a tight fit the chances of this would be pretty slim, and I have no idea if I got an extremely defective one but on mine the twist mechanism broke before it even left my house. I thought I'd test it out to do a long brew of some almost spent shu - put in the leaves, hot water, twisted shut and the lid went POP, and not only has a maybe 1-2mm range where the twist lock seems to hold or it just pops right off/open again... so it broke on its first use. Still waiting to see what Specialties Express will do about it but I'm not optimistic. A big bummer for the price and wait as I was hoping I had found a more rugged glass flask to use instead of steel for tea on the go, but it seems not to be the solution.
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