What we drink from
People talk a lot about what is in the cup and almost never about the cup. Yet the object is not neutral: it takes heat from the coffee the moment it is poured, it concentrates or disperses odors, and it shifts the judgment of the drinker before even the first sip. This plate follows the vessel from the handleless Ottoman fincan to the tasting glasses sold today as adjustments, by way of the Taiwanese smelling cup, the cupping bowl that is the only standardized coffee container, and the cardboard cup that is in reality a plastic object. On every page, the same question: what has been measured, and what is only asserted?
The 15 sections of this plate
Each section has its own page. The first sentence says what you will find there.
- 01Three things we must stop confusingThe subject of the vessel is saturated with claims.
- 02The handleless cup, and the holder that takes on the statusThe first coffee vessels described in the sources are not cups in the European sense.
- 03The Ethiopian sini, and a ceramic route older than coffeeThe Ethiopian ceremony serves coffee in small handleless cups, called sini, set on a tray.
- 04Europe does the opposite: it adds a handle and removes the holderThe European gesture is exactly symmetrical to the Ottoman one.
- 05The tazzina, and what the texts really sayThe espresso cup is the coffee vessel most often presented as standardized.
- 06Material: the question asked at the counter is the wrong onePeople always ask which material keeps the heat.
- 07Preheating, porosity, and two beliefs to sort outPreheating is constantly recommended and almost never quantified.
- 08Shape: the only solid measurement in the file, and its counterexampleHere is the experiment around which this whole field turns.
- 09Color, weight, rim thickness: three very unequal beliefsThe trade takes three propositions for granted.
- 10The cupping bowl, the only coffee vessel to be standardizedCoffee is drunk from just about anything.
- 11Contemporary shapes: what we buy is a well-drawn hypothesisFor about fifteen years, makers have been selling the shape of the vessel as a tasting adjustment and not as a table choice.
- 12Asia, and vessels made for the noseEverything above looks toward the West, and that is a blind spot.
- 13The disposable cup, which is a plastic objectThe disposable cup is the most widespread coffee vessel and the least described.
- 14The largest survey ever made, and why it does not settle the matterA study was bound to put the question to large numbers at last.
- 15What can be said in the end, and what cannotFour things stand up at the end of this plate, and they are not the ones expected at the start.
Elsewhere on the site, the passages that deal with the same things as this page. Computed from the text, not picked by hand.