Hi all,
this is a relatively simple scene that comes out not so bad to my eyes 
Blender and cycles 600 samples; postpro in blender, just rgb curves.
Which one do you find better? (click to enlarge…)
The smoke was made in BI right?
I think it looks pretty great. I think though, like the other poster may have been hinting at, you should try using a particle system for the smoke?
I think the scene is strong, but the smoke throws it off a little
Wow incedible, simple scene but nicly done with good attention to details!
some critism: For my taste the spoon is to thin (like out of a iron sheet). The material of the sugar is not looking accurate. It looks more like iron dust or magnesium;) I could imagine, that it is very hard to do a good sugar material. Maybe i would try with transluscency. And last - i not totaly like the smoke. Generaly it is well done, but i think the shape of the half lower part - how it comes out of the cup - is strange to my eyes… maybe check some reference photography.
but how i said, over all its very cool to me
Btw. i like more the second image. Fume loolks better to me.
it’s incredible! every detail is well done and I loved the textures … the smoke doesn’t look real though :spin:
seems that smoke too much . if you reduce ! may be its better. as single fog only.
Thanks for the comments you all nailed the bigger “problems” i had with this render so i took some time to correct them: the smoke this time was made with BI smoke generator, 2 hours of testing to let be enough right (before was done in say ten min… ); i changed a bit the sugar material( now seems worse 
) and adjusted the teaspoon shape, before i didn’t noticed it was too thin.
Could you show your Node-Setup for the sugar?
Have you considered that sugar is more or less crystalline? (Maybe a combination with Glass would do the job)
Looks better now:) hm i like the smoke, but still not 100% realistic to me. I never dealt with fume i have to say, but I think the details are to high. To me it looks like the smoke is coming out of something bigger than a cup (that was better in the first picture;). You must have a hard time on the sugar material… hm… it is to grey. I guess even on the shadow side (left) it has to be more white. Have you tried a mixture of diffuse and transluscency or diffuse an glass?
Btw. can you tell how you did the yarn from the teabags? thats so excellent how the single fibres are coming out of it. Thumbs up:)