A study was bound to put the question to large numbers at last. Juravle and coauthors published in 2026 a citizen-science survey of 2,987 people, in eleven countries and on five continents, each rating the pleasure taken in their own coffee, in their own vessel, declaring the circumstances.

Cup type stands out. Ceramic comes first with a mean of 8.25, ahead of plastic at 7.85 and paper at 7.82, and the so-called premium cups, ceramic and glass, are worth 2.8 percentage points more in liking than the others.

Two figures prevent making much of it, and both must be given. First the effect size: the partial eta squared is 0.007, in other words the vessel explains less than one percent of the variance in the scores. Then the numbers per category: only thirty-five people drank from a metal cup, out of nearly three thousand. The survey therefore says nothing about metal.

A weakness of principle must be added, which is that of any self-report survey. Drinking from a ceramic cup means being seated at home or in a café; drinking from a paper cup means walking to one's office. The cup and the context are confounded, and nothing in the design makes it possible to separate them.

The same study, moreover, contradicts itself on the lid. Its abstract lists drinking with a lid among the characteristics associated with displeasure; the regression model published in the body of the article gives it a positive main effect of 3.1 percentage points, paired with an interaction with the season. Both statements come from the same article, and this plate does not decide between them.

G. Juravle, D. E. Diaconașu, A. M. Andrei, F. Reinoso-Carvalho, S. D'Alfonso, V. Goglio, K. Motoki, S. Schmidt, C. Uçuk, G. Van Doorn, F. M. Carvalho and C. Spence, “A multi-country citizen-science study on what makes us enjoy a cup of coffee,” npj Science of Food, vol. 10, no. 1, 2026, article 208