Coffee Tastes Better in Your Own Cup: Meet Michelle Ma, the Potter Behind the Ralia Mugs

November 7, 2026

At Cafe Ralia we would not settle for generic mugs. Meet Michelle Ma of Atelier Ma, the Montreal potter whose handmade, unglazed mugs grow smoother every time you hold them, and whose story begins in her father's brick kiln in a village in China.

Mya Pearle Nerenberg

Generator

Founder & President

At Cafe Ralia we made a bold decision before opening. We would not settle for generic mugs. The cup holding your beverage would be part of the experience.

So the next time you order a coffee with us, take a second before your first sip and turn the mug in your hands. The outside is left unglazed on purpose so your skin touches the clay itself, and it feels a little rough at first. Michelle Ma, the Montreal potter who made it, told me that the more you hold it, the smoother it becomes, the same way wood softens with years of use. "It's a relationship of your touch," she said.

Listen to my conversation with Michelle on The Voice of Ralia

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How Michelle found her way to our counter

I first found Michelle and her studio, Atelier Ma, when I was looking for pottery lessons for my daughter. Then this summer, on a family trip to Paris, I fell for the mugs a french potter had made for a cafe there, and I knew I wanted that same feeling for us: a cup made by hand, by someone from our own city. So I reached out to Michelle.

Every one of our Ralia latte coffee mugs now comes from her studio. Each one carries the north star stamped into the clay, which is how you know it is a Ralia mug, and you will find them at both of our cafes, on Saint-Laurent and on Rosemont. This first batch was made custom for us, and we will be commissioning more. I sat down with Michelle at La Maison Ralia to hear where these cups really come from, and the answer goes much further back than a pottery wheel.

Born in the middle of the kiln

Michelle was born in a village in China, in a house made of mud, wood and dry grass, right in the middle of her father's kiln. He fired the bricks that built every house in the village, so clay and fire were simply part of the landscape she grew up in. She did not have electricity until she was 13, she rode a bike everywhere until she was 18, and she ate food from her mother's garden, including brown eggs from her mother's chickens, which is why she says she has never really eaten a white egg.

"When I was in China, talking about ceramics was normal," she told me, "but when you're out of China and just think back, it becomes special." Porcelain, stoneware, clay and glaze live deep in her culture, and when she finally sat down at a wheel, she felt like she was picking her roots back up and bringing them here to keep growing.

From the salon chair to the wheel

Before she was a potter, Michelle was a hairdresser, and she still is. She moved to Montreal in 2002 and built a loyal clientele, and over the years she watched older colleagues struggle to stay on their feet behind the chair. She wanted to keep cutting hair for a long time, so she went looking for something to balance it, something she could do with her hands while sitting down. She already loved knitting, sewing, gardening, cooking and basket making, so she kept searching.

The answer found her one evening after work, on a walk through the artisan market in the Old Port of Montreal, when she saw someone throwing clay on a wheel. She had never tried it before, and she knew right away. "Yes, that's the one." That was 2013, and she has never stopped.

Her clients turned out to be her first champions too. The people who sat in her chair connected her with her early contracts, like the Chocolate Academy and restaurants around the city, and she says those chances helped her skills grow much faster than they would have on her own.

Every cup is different, and that is the point

Michelle's signature is the colour of the earth itself. Rather than covering her pieces in glaze, she combines different colours of clay, inspired by the rocks and soil she sees in nature, and works them together on the wheel. The pressure of her hands, the amount of clay and the movement are never exactly the same twice, so the pattern is never the same twice either. No two Ralia mugs match, and Michelle would not want them to.

She leaves the outside of her dishes unglazed because she wants our hands to connect with the earth through a natural touch. That means a Ralia mug is not finished when it leaves her kiln. It keeps changing with every regular who reaches for it.

A tornado, and a corner window

Atelier Ma was born out of a hard year. In 2018, Michelle lost both of her parents, and after her mother died she made a big decision about her life. She kept the people she loved and the things she loved to do, and she let go of the rest.

She was living outside Montreal at the time and doing pottery in her basement, and a studio in the city felt out of reach. Once again, it was a client who changed things. When Michelle mentioned she was looking for a space, the client offered a building she owned, full of people who work with their hands, and her husband showed Michelle two rooms. One of them had a corner window, and since Michelle's plants are some of her best companions, that window was her yes. They gave her a price she could afford, and when she thanks them, they tell her she is worth helping.

She started with nothing and bought equipment a little at a time, year by year, and the atelier made it through COVID. Six years later, it is thriving.

The women's club she always wanted

Today Atelier Ma is much more than a pottery studio. Michelle runs weekend classes for complete beginners and for groups, which is exactly how I found her. Many students fall in love with the place and stay on as members, and most evenings now belong to them.

Michelle's favourite part of the day is around 5:30, when the members start arriving after work, relaxed and happy, ready to make something for themselves, for their families or as a gift. For years, with most of the people in her salon chair being women of different ages, backgrounds and stories, she dreamed of starting a women's club where women could connect, share what they know and help each other through the hard seasons of life. Looking around her studio now, she laughed and told me, "It looks like I already have the women's club!"

One of her students said something to her that I keep coming back to: "Coffee tastes better in my own cup."

Garden, ceramics, kitchen

Michelle has one more dream, and she holds it the way she holds everything, with patience and steady work. She would love her next atelier to be in the countryside, with three things together on one piece of land: a garden, ceramics and a kitchen. Food from the garden, served on handmade dishes, so people can slow down, connect with nature and really taste their everyday meal. "Sleeping, breathing and food are the most important things for our daily life," she said.

She does not know when it will happen, and she is honest that it may never happen, but she believes that when you keep working toward a wish, there is a big chance it eventually will. As I told her in the interview, it is our dream too.

A richness we are all craving

Near the end of our conversation, Michelle shared how she sees her life in seasons of about 25 years each. Like a bean planted in spring that flowers and becomes beans again in autumn, she feels she has entered her autumn, the season where what bloomed turns into more. She traces everything she loves now, the plants, the baskets, the handwork and the deep laugh people always ask her about, back to that childhood in the village. There is a certain richness in that, and it is one we are all craving.

That richness is in every Ralia mug. A cup made by hand, from the earth, by a Montrealer whose roots run all the way back to her father's kiln, stamped with our north star and growing smoother with every regular who holds it. It is one small, daily way we connect you with yourself, with your community and with nature, which is the whole reason Ralia exists.

Come hold one yourself

Take a class or become a member at Atelier Ma, and follow Michelle at @atelierma.ceramics.

Then come hold a Ralia mug at Cafe Ralia, 4281 Saint-Laurent and 525 Rosemont. Follow along at @ralia.cafe.

Mya
Founder, Ralia

The Cafe Ralia story so far

This post is part of our cafe series. You can read each post on its own or follow the story in order: