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A teacup is a cup for drinking tea. It may be with a handle, generally a small one that may be grasped with the thumb and one or two fingers. It is typically made of a ceramic material. It is usually part of a set, composed of a cup and a matching saucer or a trio that includes a small cake or sandwich plate. These in turn may be part of a tea set in combination with a teapot, cream jug, covered sugar bowl and slop bowl en suite. Teacups are often wider and shorter than coffee cups. Cups for morning tea are conventionally larger than cups for afternoon tea.

Better teacups typically are of fine white translucent porcelain and decorated with patterns that may be ''en suite'' with extensive dinner services. Some collectors acquire numerous one-of-a-kind cups with matching saucers. Such decorative cabinet cups may be souvenirs of a location, person, or event. Such collectors may also accumulate silver teaspoons with a decorated Vitreous enamel, enamel insert in the handle, with similar themes.

In Europe, fine porcelain tea cups made of porcelain (Limoges porcelain from a kaolin base heated in ovens or China porcelain) were a delicacy for enjoying tea time. The cups are made with a handle and are paired with a saucer in a set, they feature hand painted decoration and gold or silver patterns especially lining the rim and the handle.

In the culture of China teacups are very small, normally holding no more than 30ml of liquid. They are designed to be used with Yixing teapots or Gaiwan. Countries in the Horn of Africa like Eritrea also use the handleless cups to drink boon which is traditional coffee there. In Russian-speaking cultures and West Asian cultures influenced by the Ottoman Empire tea is often served in a glass held in a separate metal container with a handle, called a zarf. or in Russian a ''podstakannik''.

History

The teacup and saucer originated in China at the time of fortuitous near-simultaneous introduction of tea and porcelain. The original teacup design did not have a handle or a saucer, at some point a ring-shaped cupholder appeared to protect the fingers and eventually evolved into a saucer. The cups in 17th century were tiny, closer to the coffee cups of today, with the width about 2¼ inches across at the top (1¼ at the bottom) and the depth of 1½ inches. The saucers measured 4½ inches across. The European manufacturers initially copied the handle-less Oriental designs, exported from the Japanese port of Imari or from the Chinese port of Canton. The teacup handles were introduced in the West, in the early 18th century the handles a feature of chocolate cups, while teacups were still handle-less. In the 18th century Russia and other Slavic nations switched to glass (drinkware), glasses, at the turn of the 19th century ''canns'' of cylindrical form with handles became a fashionable alternative to bowl-shaped cups.

Teacup plates originated in England in the early 1800s and provided a rest for the cup and a space for a light snack, went out of fashion in the second half of the 19th century and were briefly revived in the first third of the 20th century as bridge sets.

Culture

A small-scale research was done by Yang et al. in 2019 to test the influence of the teacup shape on the expert evaluation of the tea taste. Significant variations were found, lending some support to the "you eat with your eyes" concept.

Unicode codepoints and portray a teacup. is often rendered as a teacup.

See also

* "A Nice Cup of Tea"
* Gill (unit)
* Moustache cup
* Mug
* Saucer
* Tea culture

References

Sources

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External links

Cool Trend of 1707: Teacups Get Handles

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Drinkware
Teaware
Cooking weights and measures