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cup
A simple plastic measuring cup, capable of holding the volume one metric cup with a scale for US fluid ounces
General information
Unit system	US customary units
Unit of	Volume
Symbol	cup
Conversions (US)
1 US cup in ...	... is equal to ...
SI units	236.588 mL

The cup is a cooking measure of volume, commonly associated with cooking and serving sizes. In the US, it is traditionally equal to one-half US pint (236.6 ml). Because actual drinking cups may differ greatly from the size of this unit, standard measuring cups may be used, with a metric cup commonly being rounded up to 240 millilitres (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 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 12 cups 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, being former British colonies that have since metricated, employ a "metric cup" of 250 millilitres. Although derived from the metric system, it is not an SI unit.

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 250 ml, but its conventional cup was somewhat smaller than both American and imperial units.

1 Canadian cup = 8 imperial fluid ounces = ⁠1/20⁠ imperial gallon = 227.3045 ml

1 Canadian tablespoon = 1⁄2 imperial fluid ounce (14.2065 ml)

1 Canadian teaspoon = 1⁄6 imperial fluid ounce (4.7355 ml)

United Kingdom

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Traditionally, in the United Kingdom, there are three measurement units for cooking bearing names with the word, ‘cup’. The first one is the breakfast cup (named after a cup for drinking tea or coffee while eating breakfast), which is occassioanlly shortened to just ‘cup’; 1 breakfast cup is 8 imperial fluid ounces. The second one is the teacup, the equivalence of 5 imperial fluid ounces. The third one is the coffee cup (named after a small cup for after‑dinner coffee served to aid digestion), the equivalence of 21⁄2 imperial fluid ounces.

In the United Kingdom, the standard cup was set at 10 imperial fluid ounces, or half an imperial pint. The cup was rarely used in practice, as historically most kitchens tended to be equipped with scales and ingredients were measured by weight, rather than volume. A related measure, the gill (5 fluid ounces, or half an imperial cup), was commonly used in older cookbooks for liquids, and may still be used (in fractions of 1⁄4, 1⁄5, and 1⁄6) for spirits.

International

Similar units in other languages and cultures are sometimes translated "cup", usually with various values around 1⁄5 to 1⁄4 of a litre.

Latin American cup

In Latin America, the amount of a "cup" (Spanish: taza) varies from country to country, using a cup of 200 ml, 250 ml, and the US legal or customary amount.

Japanese cup

The traditional Japanese unit equated with a "cup" size is the gō, legally equated with ⁠2401/13310⁠ litres (≈180.4 ml) in 1891, and is still used for reckoning amounts of rice and sake. The Japanese later defined a "cup" as 200 ml.

Russian cup

The traditional Russian measurement system included two cup sizes, one of which, the "charka" (cup proper), was usually used for alcoholic drinks and measured 123 ml (4.2 US fl oz; 4.3 imp fl oz), while another, "stakan" ("glass") was twice as big at 246 ml (8.3 US fl oz; 8.7 imp fl oz) and used for other liquids.

Since metrication, the charka was informally redefined as 100 ml, acquiring a new name of "stopka" (related to the traditional Russian measurement unit "stopa"), while there are currently two widely used glass sizes of 250 and 200 ml.

Dutch cup

In The Netherlands, traditionally a "cup" (Dutch: kopje) amounts to 150 ml. However, in modern recipes the US legal cup of 240 ml 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 "1 cup of sugar and 2 cups 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.

See also

• Cooking weights and measures

Notes

1. One gram per millilitre is very close to one avoirdupois ounce per fluid ounce: 1 g/ml ≈ 1.002 av oz/imp fl oz This is not a numerical coincidence, but comes from the original definition of the kilogram as the mass of one litre of water, and the imperial gallon as the volume occupied by ten avoirdupois pounds of water. The slight difference is due to water at 4 °C (39 °F) being used for the kilogram, and at 62 °F (17 °C) for the imperial gallon. The US fluid ounce is slightly larger.

   1 g/ml ≈ 1.043 av oz/US fl oz.

2. The density of water ranges from about 0.96 to 1.00 g/ml dependent on temperature and pressure. The table above assumes a temperature range 0–30 °C (32–86 °F). The variation is too small to make any difference in cooking.
3. Since an imperial cup of water weighs approximately 10 avoirdupois ounces and five imperial cups are approximately equal to six US cups, one US cup of water weighs approximately 81⁄3 avoirdupois ounces.

References

1. (21 CFR 101.9 (b) (5) (viii)
2. US Government Printing Office—Electronic Code of Federal Regulations Archived 2009-08-13 at the Wayback Machine
3. U.S. Food and Drug Administration—Guidelines for Determining Metric Equivalents of Household Measures
4. "US Legal Cup Measures". 16 November 2020. Archived from the original on 19 November 2020. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
5. "Black and Decker Replacement Carafe". Archived from the original on 2016-12-31. Retrieved 2016-12-30.
6. "Standard Australian Cooking Measurements". Retrieved 2014-09-24.
7. "coherent units". BIPM. Retrieved 2014-05-26.
8. "How Many Tablespoons in a Cup - Easy Conversions". First Health Mag. 2016-04-28. Retrieved 2016-05-08.
9. Measuring Cups
10. ‘Consuming Interest’, Elizabeth David, The Spectator, 15 March, 1963
11. ‘Tea Making, My Experiments ’, chapter XVII, page 456, volume IIIB, The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton (1930)
12. ‘Consuming Interest’, Elizabeth David, The Spectator, 15 March, 1963
13. ‘Consuming Interest’, Elizabeth David, The Spectator, 15 March, 1963
14. Stobart, Tom (1981).The Cook's Encyclopedia, Harper & Row, p.524
15. 1 g/ml is a good rough guide for water-based liquids such as milk (the density of milk is about 1.03–1.04 g/ml).
16. Water density calculator
17. Ma, Allen (2007). Elert, Glenn (ed.). "Density of water". The Physics Factbook. Retrieved 2018-07-06.
18. ^ L. Fulton, E. Matthews, C. Davis: Average weight of a measured cup of various foods. Home Economics Research Report No. 41, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC, 1977.

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