The '
cup
'' is a cooking measure of

volume Volume is a measure of regions in three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch) ...

, commonly associated with cooking and

serving size A serving size or portion size is the amount of a food or drink that is generally served. A distinction is made between a portion size as determined by an external agent, such as a food manufacturer, chef, or restaurant, and a "self selected po ...

s. In the US customary system, it is equal to . Because actual drinking

cup A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about . Cups may be made of pottery (including porcelain), glass, metal, wood, stone, pol ...

s may differ greatly from the size of this unit, standard

measuring cup A measuring cup is a List of food preparation utensils, kitchen utensil used primarily to measure the volume of liquid or bulk solid cooking ingredients such as flour and sugar, especially for volumes from about 50 millilitre, mL (approx. 2& ...

s may be used, with a metric cup commonly being rounded up to 240

millilitre The litre ( Commonwealth spelling) or liter ( American spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metres (m3). A cu ...

s (''legal cup''), but 250 ml is also used depending on the measuring scale.

United States

Customary cup

In the United States, the customary cup is half of a US liquid pint.

Legal cup

The cup currently used in the United States for nutrition labelling is defined in United States law as 240 ml.

Conversion table to US legal cup

The following information is describing that how to measure US legal cup in different ways.

Coffee cup

A "cup" of coffee in the US is usually 4 fluid ounces (118 ml), brewed using 5 fluid ounces (148 ml) of water. Coffee carafes used with drip coffee makers, e.g. Black and Decker models, have markings for both water and brewed coffee as the carafe is also used for measuring water prior to brewing. A 12-cup carafe, for example, has markings for 4, 6, 8, 10, and of water or coffee, which correspond to 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 US fluid ounces (0.59, 0.89, 1.18, 1.48, and 1.77 litres) of water or 16, 24, 32, 40, and 48 US fluid ounces (0.47, 0.71, 0.95, 1.18, and 1.42 litres) of brewed coffee respectively, the difference being the volume absorbed by the coffee grounds and lost to evaporation during brewing.

Commonwealth of Nations

Metric cup

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and some other members of the

Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the British Commonwealth or simply the Commonwealth, is an International organization, international association of member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, 56 member states, the vast majo ...

, being former British colonies that have since metricated, employ a "metric cup" of 250millilitres. Although derived from the

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that standardization, standardizes a set of base units and a nomenclature for describing relatively large and small quantities via decimal-based multiplicative unit prefixes. Though the rules gover ...

, it is not an

SI unit The International System of Units, internationally known by the abbreviation SI (from French ), is the modern form of the metric system and the world's most widely used system of units of measurement, system of measurement. It is the only system ...

. A "coffee cup" is 1.5 dL (i.e. 150 millilitres or 5.07 US customary fluid ounces), and is occasionally used in recipes; in older recipes, cup may mean "coffee cup". It is also used in the US to specify coffeemaker sizes (what can be referred to as a '' Tasse à café''). A "12-cup" US coffeemaker makes 57.6 US customary fluid ounces of coffee, which is equal to 6.8 metric cups of coffee.

Canadian cup

Canada now usually employs the metric cup of 250ml, but its conventional cup was somewhat smaller than both American and imperial units.

British cup

British cookery books and recipes, especially those from the days before the UK's partial metrication, commonly called for quantities measured by ordinary drinking vessels, such as a 'tumblerful' of one ingredient and a 'wineglassful' of another one. Unlike the standard US customary cup, these are not precise units; there is no

imperial unit The imperial system of units, imperial system or imperial units (also known as British Imperial or Exchequer Standards of 1826) is the system of units first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act 1824 and continued to be developed thr ...

⁠–⁠based culinary measuring cup. Today, recipes normally use imperial fluid ounces or millilitres, and recipes referring to 'cups' are generally assumed either to refer to US customary cups or to be an inexact measure. The 1894 book ''Enquire Within Upon Everything'' states that 1 cup "usually contains about" 6 imperial fluid ounces (fl oz).Paragraph 665
page 119, ''Enquire Within Upon Everything'' (1894) The same book also mentions two British culinary measurement units of volume based on drinking vessels: the tumbler ("usually contains about" 10 fl oz, which is imp pint) and the

wine glass A wine glass is a type of Glass (drinkware), glass that is used for drinking or wine tasting, tasting wine. Most wine glasses are stemware (goblets), composed of three parts: the bowl, stem, and foot. There are a wide variety of slightly differe ...

("usually contains about" 2 fl oz). The 'wine glass' here refers to a small glass for serving liquor, not a typical wine glass. Since the UK is not a major producer of wine, typical wine‑glass sizes are those used by the biggest suppliers of wine, especially EU producers, who exclusively use metric measurements. Common wine‑glass sizes are 125 ml (about 4.4 UK fluid ounces or 4.23 US fluid ounces) and 250 ml (about 8.8 UK fluid ounces or 8.45 US fluid ounces), corresponding to and , respectively, of a standard wine bottle (750 ml; about 26.4 UK fluid ounces or 25.36 US fluid ounces), but these are not generally used as units. The cookery writer Elizabeth David, writing in ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...

'', referred to the other three British culinary measurement units of volume based on drinking vessels and gave their typical capacities, in contrast to the exact US measure: the breakfast cup (8 fl oz),"Tea Making, My Experiments 859. In Pearson, Karl (1930)
Chapter XVII
page 456, volume IIIB, ''The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton''. Cambridge University Press. the teacup (5 fl oz), and the coffee cup (2 fl oz). Of these, the breakfast cup is the most similar in size to the standard US customary cup and metric cup. It is slightly smaller than the US customary cup since the US fluid ounce is slightly larger than the UK fluid ounce. There is division of labour between these six units of volume, like the tablespoon and the teaspoon.

International

Similar units in other languages and cultures are sometimes translated "cup", usually with various values around to of a litre.

Latin American cup

In Latin America, the amount of a "cup" () varies from country to country, using a cup of 200ml (about 7.04 British imperial fluid ounces or 6.76 US customary fluid ounces), 250ml (about 8.80 British imperial fluid ounces or 8.45 US customary fluid ounces), and the US legal or customary amount.

Japanese cup

The traditional Japanese unit equated with a "cup" size is the '' gō'', legally equated with litre (≈ 180.4 ml/6.35 British imperial fluid ounces/6.1 US customary fluid ounces) in 1891, and is still used for reckoning amounts of rice and '' sake''. The legacy of this is that the rough metric equivalent of the ''gō'', 180 ml, is used for the cups that are sold with rice cookers throughout East Asia, Europe and the United States. The Japanese later defined a "cup" as 200 ml.

Russian cup

The traditional Russian measurement system included two cup sizes: the "charka" (cup proper) and the "stakan" ("glass"). The charka was usually used for alcoholic drinks and is 123mL (about 4.33 British imperial fluid ounces or 4.16 US customary fluid ounces), while the stakan, used for other liquids, was twice as big and is 246mL (about 8.66 British imperial fluid ounces or 8.32 US customary fluid ounces). Since metrication, the charka was informally redefined as 100 ml (about 3.52 British imperial fluid ounces or 3.38 US customary fluid ounces), acquiring a new name of "stopka" (related to the traditional Russian measurement unit "stopa"), while there are currently two widely used glass sizes of 250mL (about 8.80 British imperial fluid ounces or 8.45 US customary fluid ounces) and 200 ml (about 7.04 British imperial fluid ounces or 6.76 US customary fluid ounces).

Dutch cup

In The Netherlands, traditionally a "cup" (Dutch: ''kopje'') amounts to 150 ml (about 5.28 British imperial fluid ounces or 5.07 US customary fluid ounces). However, in modern recipes, the US legal cup of 240 ml (about 8.45 British imperial fluid ounces or 8.12 US customary fluid ounces) is more commonly used.

Dry measure

In Europe, recipes normally weigh non-liquid ingredients in grams rather than measuring volume. For example, where an American recipe might specify " of sugar and of milk", a European recipe might specify "200 g sugar and 500 ml of milk". A precise conversion between the two measures takes into account the density of the ingredients, and some recipes specify both weight and volume to facilitate this conversion. Many European measuring cups have markings that indicate the weight of common ingredients for a given volume.

Notes

References

{{United States Customary Units Measurement Units of volume Customary units of measurement in the United States Imperial units Metricated units Alcohol measurement Cooking weights and measures