How Many Ounces in a Cup of Coffee?

Sounds like a simple question, right? After all, ounces and cups are neat, well-defined measurements, and what you’re measuring shouldn’t change them. however, for some reason, it has become commonplace to use a different definition of a mug when referring to a cup of coffee than you would otherwise use. we agree; doesn’t make much sense.

Reading: How many ounces in one cup of coffee

Eight ounces per cup is the standard conversion, but a cup of coffee is only 4 ounces. To make matters worse, brewing requires slightly more water by volume than the amount of coffee you end up with, meaning that brewing a 4-ounce cup of coffee requires about 5 ounces of water. In this short guide, we are going to explain the history and details of coffee “cups” so you know how much coffee and water you should use to fill your cup. let’s get started.

when is a cup not a cup? ounces in a cup of coffee

In the United States, the standard 8-ounce mug that everyone uses for cooking and baking is technically called a traditional mug. there’s nothing fun about the usual cups, and it’s just 8 ounces of some liquid. technically the correct unit is customary fluid ounces rather than regular ounces, but we’ll get to that.

You’ll notice the first sign of trouble if you’re trying to check the size of a bottle of something by measuring it yourself. For labeling purposes, 1 cup equals 240 milliliters, slightly larger than the 236.6-milliliter size of a typical mug. This means that if you pour some liquid from a bottle labeled to hold 1 cup, your measuring cup will actually only fill slightly below the 1-cup line. The official name for this slightly larger cup is the “legal” cup as it is the legal definition of a recognized cup in the United States.

To make matters worse, 1 legal cup is also defined as eight US nutritional fluid ounces. which are not the same as US customary fluid ounces. uu. things are getting out of hand, so let’s recap:

1 usual cup = 8 usual fluid ounces
1 legal cup = 8 nutritional fluid ounces = 8.12 usual fluid ounces

All you need to know is that your measuring cup measures things in customary fluid ounces and customary cups. If you’re confused by a container that appears to have less liquid than you expected, it could be because it was labeled nutritional fluid ounces and legal cups.

A final note is that other countries have different conventions. In Australia, Canada and New Zealand, 1 cup refers to a “metric” cup or 250 milliliters of liquid. You probably won’t come across metric cups if you live in the US, but it’s good to know just in case.

cups of coffee

Now that we know all about the different types of cups, coffee cups throw us another curveball. It is generally accepted that a cup of brewed coffee equals 4 ounces, half the amount of a regular cup. however, when you’re making coffee, you need to use about 5 ounces of water for every 4-ounce cup of coffee you want. coffee grounds absorb some water as they brew, resulting in less coffee by volume than the amount of water you put in.

many automatic drip coffee makers have two sets of lines on the carafe, one to measure the water and the other to measure the brewed coffee. As an example, consider a 12-cup coffee maker. the pitcher will typically have markings at 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 corresponding to 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 ounces of water. remember that if you brew with 20 ounces of water you will get around 16 ounces of brewed coffee.

Let’s work with a concrete example to make sure everything is very clear. Let’s say you want to end up with two 8-ounce cups of coffee. to make 16 ounces of coffee, you need to use 20 ounces of water, which means you need to fill your carafe up to line 4.

a bit of history

if you think this is unnecessarily complicated, we agree. the blame seems to go back to the early 1970s when mr. cafe introduced a coffee maker that used 5 ounces of water as a standard measure. His carafe had markings in 5-ounce and 4-ounce increments to make it easy to compare amounts of pre-brewed water to brewed coffee.

mr. the success of the café with this model led to imitators and the convention, unfortunately, stuck. today it is an archaic set of measures, but it seems that we are sticking with it.

conclusion

what appears to be a simple question has a surprisingly convoluted and annoying answer. Not only do kitchen measuring cups and store packaging use the unit “cups” to mean different things, but coffee cups use neither and instead opt for a third meaning of “cups.”

Hopefully, this short article has helped clear up some confusion around mugs and clarified what people mean when they talk about coffee mugs. The best advice we can give you is to follow the instructions for your coffee maker and don’t worry about converting coffee cups to traditional cups or legal cups. most of the time, using the lines on the jar will be the best way to get consistent results.

featured image credit: copiavisual, pixabay