I’m about to write about coasters. A new low in my life.
We have and even use coasters of various varieties including ceramic somewhere and also spend too much on obviously highly tasteful ceramic items, but zero crossover between these two categories, coasters basically being things that go under cups. I guess there is something about making a table look more classy for a god help us dinner party. You’d need more than four for that.
Place mats for some reason make me think of naff hunting scenes, though we do have some mat type ones which are v occasionally deployed. So in our house, low key coasters ahead of place mats, however it is indeed unlikely that my views would be factored hugely into any decision on their acquisition.