Thermos Gifting Became a Chinese New Year Trend — And Western Chinamaxxers Are Copying It
Premium vacuum flasks sold out during Chinese New Year 2025 as thermos gifting trended. Here is why thermoses make perfect Chinese gifts and how the habit is spreading.
What Happened
During Chinese New Year 2025, thermos gifting became a notable trend on Chinese social media — young people giving premium vacuum flasks to grandparents, parents, and each other as New Year gifts. Several thermos brands reported significant spikes in sales during the holiday period. The Zojirushi brand's premium Chinese New Year edition sets sold out on multiple platforms within days of listing.
Jing Daily coverage of Chinese wellness gifting trends
Why Thermoses As Gifts
In Chinese gift culture, practical objects that signal health and longevity are strongly preferred for older recipients. A thermos is not an generic appliance in this context — it is a specific statement: I care about your warmth and your health. For the recipient who uses it daily for hot water or tonic teas, the gift continues to express care every time it is used.
This is different from the Western gifting instinct, which tends toward the novel, the decorative, or the experiential. The Chinese practical-gift tradition reflects a different theory of what gifts are for: not novelty, but utility that extends the giver's presence into the recipient's daily life.
The Thermos Gifting Crosses Into Western Chinamaxxing
The gifting trend produced a secondary wave of Western content: people giving thermoses as gifts to parents, partners, or friends as a way of introducing them to the hot water habit. Several viral posts showed the "I got my mom into thermos culture" format — a parent who received a vacuum flask and began using it daily.
This is an interesting vector for habit transmission. The thermos habit is much more likely to stick when someone already in your life is doing it than when you discover it through social media. Gift-giving as habit introduction is an efficient cultural transmission mechanism that Chinese thermos culture has built in, without intending to.
For the cultural logic of thermos culture and why the object has become so symbolically significant: The Thermos, The Hot Water, and The Anti-Hustle Mood. For a practical beginner's guide to starting the habit: Beginner's Guide to Thermos Culture.