Totally OT - Coffee makers

Re: Totally OT - Coffee makers

Frederick Nelson

>I've run into this one before. Apparently, coffee cups are between 4 and 5 fluid ounces in volume, and manufacturers aren't exactly specific about what measure they use. They are, of course, referring to those dainty and diminutive cups people keep with their "good" china that no one ever actually drinks out of. At least, not with any regularity.

Without knowing the actual volume of your caraffe, it would be hard to say which measurement the manufacturer used.

Fred in MO

Re: Totally OT - Coffee makers

Jim Davies, Clayton, NJ

>A subject dear to my heart! Love my coffe and drink it ALL day!

My maker filled to 8 cups gives me four 12 ounce mugs. Figure 48 ounces divided by their 8 cups makes their standard a 6 ounce cup.

Jim D.

Re: Totally OT - Coffee makers *LINK*

Brad Vietje

>Using my handy-dandy (and, I must say, very handsome) CLTL mug, I find that a 10-cup pot is about 3 mug's worth. My kinda coffee cup !

Safe Spinning,

Brad Vietje

Thetford, VT


EXCELLENT CLTL Coffee Mugs

It's a nutritional value, one cup

Shawn - in ID

>of coffee = one serving of coffee = 6 oz. A cup of other liquids, milk for example, is what you are thinking of with 8 oz.

Totally OT - Maybe the answer

Fred in NC

>I checked it again. I think the markings on the carafe are too low. From 2 cups to 4 cups there are 12 oz. From 4 to 6 again 12 oz. But only 6 oz from the bottom to the 2 cup mark !!!

So the "standard" 6 oz cup of coffee makes sense. I would rather stick to my somewhat larger mugs !!

Thanks for your answers.

Shrinking the coffee in NC ...

Don't forget loss...

Peter Teubel

>I agree that coffe maker manufacturers use the same silly math as the lumber industry. But don't forget there is some loss to steam and the amount abrorbed by the coffee grounds.

Re: Totally OT - Coffee makers

Charlie Anderson in Southern Maryland

>We recently started a coffee mess (they call it a club). The organizer went and found the cheapest 12 cup coffee maker she could. She did good; only paid $6. It's a coffe maker but it IS cheaply made.

But I noticed the pot emptied quickly. So one morning, I pour the 12 cup pot of water into the pot of the old coffee maker. It only came up to 10 cups.

So I guess 12 cup is the standard, but the 'cup' is not a standard.

Re: Totally OT - Coffee makers

Russ Fairfield

>The "cup" isn't the only thing that has gotten smaller. Has anyone noticed that a "1-pound" can of coffee now holds only 10 or 12 ounces.

Re: Totally OT - Coffee makers

Stuart Johnson

>I also use a CLTL mug and have found both coffee makers hold the same amount. A cup, warm it up, warm it up and when out make some more. It isn't the maker that differs but the amount in the warm it up.

Re: Totally OT - Coffee makers

Barry Turner

>I read somewhere that those clowns in marketing who write the specs for coffee makers think that a cup of coffee is a whopping 6oz. In my shop, it's 16oz. But who wants to buy a coffee maker that has a capacity of 3 cups?

This afternoon I went shopping ...

Fred in NC

>Went shopping for other stuff at the local 'discount chain store' and noticed the coffee makers on display.

One that caught my eye was a '4 cup' model. The carafe was not much larger than a big coffee mug. One 16 oz cup, and half a refill at most!

The least they could do is state the size cups they are referring to in the instructions :-)

Just my $2.07 opinion, indexed to the outrageous price of gas . . .

Re: Totally OT - Coffee makers

EagleS.C.

>My Wife and I have been using Bunn coffee marker for 12 years.

Last year we had to replace the original.

Bunn has a website that allows you to trade inyour old coffee maker for a new one at a much discounted price than they are sold in the stores.

When the new maker arrived I noticed the capacity of cups was different between the new one oand the old one.

It seems there is an industry standard that had changed since we bought our first Bunn brewer.

The original held 8 cups at 6 ounces per cup,The new maker has a capacity of 10 cups at 5 ounces per cup.

It makes no difference we measure in mugs.

The bunn normally sells in stores for around $100.00 but the upgrade through Bunn cost only $60.00.

Much cheaper than anything I could find anywhere.

I like the"no wait feature" of the Bunn.

Re: ICO and NCA. From the horse's mouth.

Al Crandall --NE of Indy--

>A quick google search for International Coffee Organization will provide data from the National Coffee Association of the USA. A exerpt from an article by the NCA president states, "The size of the coffee cup in the United States is also notable; the American cup has continued to grow over the decades - increasing from an average of 5 ounces in the 1960's to 8 ounces today based on the official serving size used by the US Food and Drug Administration. The NCA annual surveys actually show a more aggressive growth in the cup size - an average sized coffee cup in the United States now contains 9 ounces of coffee for the daily coffee consumer."

My guess is that the manufacturers of coffee making machines are sticking with the old 5 ounce standard used by the ICO, while we drinkers at home are foregoing the "standard" 9 ounce reataurant cup in favor of our 12 or 13 ounce "mugs" and wondering why a pot becomes empty so quickly.

Horses like caffeine ? ,

Fred in NC

>Thank you for the info and links, Al !

I guess I will have to dig out some epoxy paint, and mark the carafe in 9 oz mugs ... :-)

Re: ICO and NCA. From the horse's mouth.

Shawn - in ID

>The 6 oz cup of coffee doesn't have anything to do with the ICA or NCA. The quote you give is them simply recognizing that the amount that people typically drink has increased over the years. The dietary allotments of all foods and drinks are based on their nutritional content. Many years ago, dietetics associations in conjuction with the USFDA decided that a single serving of coffee would have a given amount of caffeine (it slips me now but I believe it's right about 300 mg caffeine). At the time, it took about 6 oz of a typical cup of coffee to get that amount of caffeine. The word cup was simply unit of convenience that became generalized (you'd never say, I'm going to get a serving of coffee) - it was never intended to mean the unit of measurement that we are now confusing it with. Coffee pot makers mark their carrafes by this 6 oz per "cup" standard.