Thursday, March 12, 2009

Cuppa Joe.

Speaking of cup size, what measurement are coffeemaker companies using when they say "8 cup" or "12 cup"?

I know it's not a regulation cooking "cup" of 10 ounces. It's certainly not the standard coffee mugs we use here at Roseholme Cottage, because our "8 cups" of morning coffee means somebody gets two mugs and the slower one gets one and a warmup. I don't think you could even get eight full styrofoam shot glasses of the kind they keep next to the coffee urn at work out of it, but the Chemex insists I just made "8 cups" of coffee.

I demand cup reform! Accuracy in cup reporting! There oughtta be a law!

34 comments:

Pappy said...

A Standard cup is 8 oz, a coffee maker cup seems to be about 6 oz and most of my coffee mugs are about 10-11 oz. It's too early to do math.

Jay G said...

I'm pretty sure Pappy's right - a standard coffeemaker "cup" is actually 6 ounces.

Personally, I think it shouldn't be called a cup unless it's so large it threatens to fall out of the cupholder in your car...

Crustyrusty said...

If I remember correctly, the "ANSI Standard Coffee Cup" is 6 ounces. I could down that in one gulp....

Anonymous said...

Helped a friend program her new Krups the other day. First one DOA, this one a royal pain in the rear to use, I think they are calibrated in jiggers.

Rich in Ohio said...

Just another example of the price we're still paying for the last administration's deregulation of the coffee maker industry.

Tam said...

Rich in Ohio wins the internets!

Canthros said...

6oz is, traditionally, the size of a standard teacup, FWIW.

This means that this is clearly the fault of those poncy Brits.

Anonymous said...

Um, Tam? That room with the cold box and the table with the fire on top is the kitchen. Some people cook in there. Lots 'o people, really.

Once they've been in there a while and learn their way around a box of Bisquick, they typically pick up some of the basics like, oh, say, units of measure.

One of the first things they learn is that a cup is 8 oz. I know, I know, it's not as easy to pick uy as that funny European system, but if you can remember what ammo to use in a Garand as opposed to a Mosin Nagant, you can remember how many ounces are in a cup.

In the mean time, you might want to let roomie do the precise stuff in the kitchen. Stick to grilling those rueben sandwiches and watching her for a while.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Have to agree...pretty sure the standard is 6oz.

My Bunn coffeemaker holds 48oz. in its preheat tank and for a full pot you pour in another 48oz. of cold water. 6 * 8 = 48. So it's either a six-cup or an eight-cup coffeemaker, regardless of what the box said. For me it's a six.

Tam said...

By way of an excuse, I was only halfway through my first "cup" of coffee this morning.

I was thinking about beer, and imperial pints, which made me think of imperial cups, which are useless for anything except making you a whiz at Trivial Pursuit.

You are, of course, correct.

Anonymous said...

Well, the coffee maker that was brought for work says it produces up to 12 5 oz cups of coffee...

Impresses the idiots instead of saying 6 10 oz cups.

It's a fairly small coffee maker because none of us drink coffee, except our superintendent when he comes down from the park he stays at once a week.

Alchemyst said...

Hmmmm. It may be 'cause I don't drink coffee that when thinking of cup sizes my thought drift, naturally, towards bras. Of course I could be a lascivious ol' man. At any rate I'm all for more transparency here, a bit more truthfulness would also be in order. Finally, dare I say lets get this out in open for all to view.

RevGreg said...

I'd have to buy a commercial coffee urn to have a 10 cup coffee maker...of course, that's what happens when your coffee mug is a half liter stoneware mug from the Hofbrau in Munich (actually, it only has to logo on it...I bought it at Woolworth's in Munich in 1983 but that'll be our little secret! Yeah...me and the entire interweb.)

I'm going to have to find a suitable replacement when I arrive in Phoenix next Tuesday...we're stopping by Dillion Precision and Scotsdale Gun Club before heading up to Sedona, maybe they sell a suitable vessel...although there's nothing at SCG under "hydration systems" but camel packs. Hmmm, maybe?

Rob K said...

I've noticed that about coffee makers too. Our carafe has double markings that show how much water you need to get how much coffee, since some will be lost to vapor, and some stays in the grounds.

Makes me think too of how those lousy Brit merchants stuck us with 16oz pints. Only in the past few years have you been able to get an honest 20oz. Irritates me every time I order a beer.

Anonymous said...

Yea, and I just love how a pound of coffee is just 13 oz.

Anonymous said...

Alchy, gotcha, didn't she?

The telling word here is "Chemex."
Mine's in a safe place--I reverted to Melitta for everyday, prone to the thousand shocks a glass carafe is heir to in a kitchen stocked with well-seasoned Scout-camp gourmet cookware.

You cannot make a Starbucky cafe-infused half-soybean frappe confection with a lab grade funnel filter. This puts you in an owners club as exclusive as Mauser-Vergueiro, and just about as popular. Way better hippie-krypton than just a hat.

BobG said...

Most of my coffee mugs hold between 16 and 20 oz; I never believe the silly numbers on the coffee pot.

J.R.Shirley said...

I was just thinking about this problem this morning, since most of the coffee I've had recently has been brewed by friends. I made myself what I *thought* would be about 20 oz of coffee...forgetting the 5 or 6 oz idiocy. A cup is a cup is a cup. That means 8 oz in the Shirleyverse. Not the stupid, lay-off-the-psychotropics John Shirleyverse, but the authentic, I didn't help write The Crow or sing with Blue Oyster Cult except in the privacy of my own home, but I haven't fried my brain John R. Shirleyverse.

J

Rova said...

The only thing that matters at all is the quality of the brew in the cup/mug/Valhalla horn/etc in one's hand, yes? I'd happily make you a double ristretto on the Elektra MCaL from fresh, home-roasted beans that tops out at just under 2 ounces from a well-tamped double basket and takes around 28 seconds to pull that'll put thunder and lightening behind your eyes at the splinters of dawn anytime you might visit this altitude! And if you prefer something a bit less potent, how about a "Shot in the Dark?" A shot of espresso in a good cup of coffee?

Cream and sugar sort? I make a sinfully delicious double cappuccino with half and half and raw sugar - comes to about 4 ounces.

But if you down it by the mug, at least make the pot with the best, freshly roasted beans, okay?

The smile on your face will completely erase any focus on the vagaries of brewer labeling, trust me.

Speaking of which, I could use another cup. . .

Anonymous said...

@John

This means that this is clearly the fault of those poncy Brits.

Don't blame us for your "shortcomings" we gave the world a perfectly good measure in the gallon and look what you lot did to that.

GeorgeH said...

An Imperial (Brit) cup is 10 ounces. A US cup is 8. A coffemaker cup is whatever they think will fit in one of those preposterous little disposable plastic cone/cups.

Anonymous said...

Rova! Pure distilled freeze-dried Ghey! It's the cat-ate-it-before Coffee Gospel from Glorious People's Democracy!

Maah-v'lous!

Get the frick back on your side of the Marianas Trench, you commie fink, or we'll tell the Neighborhood Commissar where you hid your Samovar. Your little experiment in probing US Intarw3bz security is so ovah.

Joseph said...

I thought cups were measured with letters. A B C D DD...

Anonymous said...

After my 3rd Bunn coffemaker bit the dust, I said the hell with it and bought $10 Protor-Silex.

It says 12 cups on the carafe, but I overfill it to about a 1/4 inch from the brim(all the reservior will allow). Still only get 3 fillings with my coffee cup.

Wow! This topic get's you as many if not more responses than if it was about guns.

John A said...

This means that this is clearly the fault of those poncy Brits.

Perhaps. My evidence is anecdotal. I download a few UK shows like Bargain Hunt and puzzled for a bit that the "expert" people could say something like "No, that is not a tea service, it is for coffee."

Until I noticed the coffee cups were always smaller - by about a third - than most cups. So if the standard Brit teacup is 10oz as mentioned above, the coffee cup would be a bit less than 7oz. And a 10-cup coffee maker would come up more than three teacups short.

Personally, I use a 14oz beer mug.

Crucis said...

Tam, would you please enlarge the print a bit? I had to read that first paragraph three times before I realized it was "eight" instead of "B".

Just couldn't figger how you linked a bra size with a coffee cup.

Anonymous said...

I'll keep using my Stop'n'Rob 28 oz travel mug, thank you very much. 99 cents per refill of any mixture of their various hot beverages I want, although I prefer their basic house blend -- they brew it strong enough to actually taste it. In a recent local poll it came out #1 over Staryucks, which didn't even show.

Rova said...

As you wish, Anon; being TBI, coffee is life in my world. A Room with a View, Cole and the cats, and the occasional elk outside the window. . .

closed said...

Drink meade, not coffee.

Sigivald said...

Coffee and tea arrived in Britain at about the same time (and in Europe earlier, especially coffee).

Smaller cups were commonplace (as reflected by the commonality of small teacups, and small coffee cups in Europe to this day).

There is talk that the standard of 6 oz for coffee is based either on a teacup, or that it's 6oz of coffee to leave room for milk (in the Austrian tradition) and to not spill it in drinking, in a "proper 8oz cup".

The important thing to remember is that "drinking cup" and "measuring cup" are not the same thing, and there's no reason to assume the former is Half A Pint Exactly.

(Me, I drink maybe a quart or quart and a half a day.)

Anonymous said...

Floored. Really. You want MORE regulation of coffee cup volume? Okay, here is a little secret: It really is 10 oz of coffee a cup. The government has installed teleport traps on all coffee makers sold in the US. That way they can collect the other 4-5 oz of coffee "revenues" instantly. What we really need is the govt. OUT of our coffee cups. Free the coffee market and let it flow. ;)

Anonymous said...

When I read it, my brain saw this:

Speaking of cup size, what measurement are coffeemaker companies using when they say "B cup" or "12 cup"?

*brainlock*

Crucius got there before me, I see. :)

Anonymous said...

Coffee mugs? Bra sizes? I read "cup" and think that somebody is about to kick me in the nuts, so I better get on the thick plastic one. Maybe all that caffeine and staring at women has made me paranoid.

Anonymous said...

Glad we are clear about the different number of ounces in UK and American cups.
Did it occur to anyone that the fluid ounce might be different in the two countries? the inch wasn't standardised until '56