Great Coffee Cups

Why glass coffee cups?  Aren’t regular coffee cups good enough?  I mean, all they’re supposed to do is hold coffee, right?

Even from a completely utilitarian point of view, glass coffee cups make sense.  After all, it’s a lot easier to tell if your coffee is made right if you can, you know, see it.  This is especially important with espresso coffee cups where there’s only a tiny amount of  coffee, but the layers are very specific.  But this likely isn’t the main reason that people purchase glass coffee cups.

The main reason is probably for their looks.  Although a drinking glass looks fairly normal, a glass coffee cup somehow looks more elegant than your standard porcelain or ceramic.  Even the cheapest glass coffee cups look as if they’re made of crystal when sparkling clean.  At home, having glass coffee cups can truly add to the decor of a kitchen.  A restaurant owner might use regular coffee cups most of the day, and then switch to glass coffee cups when he turns the lights down for dinner, adding a touch of elegance.

Most of the perceived drawbacks are misconceptions.  Glass coffee cups are no more breakable than ceramic or porcelain.  Think about it.  You knew that.  I think it’s because we’re all brought up using plastic cups as kids that we automatically assume glass equals breakable.  However, compared to ceramic, glass is probably actually stronger.

Glass coffee cups are no more expensive than a normal coffee cup, if you know where to look.  They sell at various online outlets for around $20 per cup, which is pretty standard for a quality coffee cup of any material.  They definitely look more expensive, though.

Some feel that glass coffee cups won’t keep their coffee warm for as long as porcelain or ceramic.  This might be true if not for the huge hole in the top of every coffee cup.  With the exception of disposable coffee cups, or travel mugs, you can’t really count on your container keeping the coffee warm.  A material merely has to not conduct heat well to be good for coffee cups – that’s all.  Otherwise, any time you grabbed the handle, you’d burn yourself.

Probably the biggest downside is spotting.  If you don’t use drinking glasses, odds are pretty good that you don’t even know if your method of washing dishes is leaving spots on them.  Glass coffee cups will tell you real quick, and you may have to change how you do things.  There are additives for dishwashers that take care of this, but success may be limited depending on your dishwasher.  You might finding yourself washing your glass coffee cups by hand.

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In my wandering around the web learning about coffee cups, I’ve come across espresso coffee cups. Silly me; I thought that when most people drank espresso, they did it out of coffee cups or regular cups or something. I had no idea there were designated espresso coffee cups but, apparently, there are. This led me to search deeper to see exactly what espresso coffee cups are.

Apparently espresso is supposed to be drunk from little 4 oz espresso coffee cups, although I did see some that were up to 5.5oz. My step-daughter informs me that real espresso is strong enough that you wouldn’t want to drink a coffee cup full of the stuff. The only espresso I’ve ever experienced was some stuff I got out of a vending machine at a place I used to work. Obviously this wasn’t real espresso. Luckily, the same step-daughter has a little tiny espresso maker thing, so I’m going to get to experience real espresso later tonight.

Anyway, back on the subject of espresso coffee cups. As opposed to coffee cups, which tend to reflect where you’ve been, espresso coffee cups are intended more to show your style as a person. They generally come in sets which really underscores that they’re meant primarily for entertaining in social environments. As I said before, they’re smaller, holding between 4 oz and 5.5 oz of liquid while a regular coffee cup holds between 6 oz and 8 oz. This is because the amount of espresso that fills an espresso cup contains about as much caffeine as a strong cup of coffee. They also generally come with little saucers that match the cups.

When buying espresso coffee cups, people are usually very picky. These cups are seen as a luxury, so they’re not going to get just anything. It’s going to have to match their kitchen, and their sense of style. Therefore, if you’re going to make a gift out of espresso coffee cups, you’ll have to be very careful and pick something that matches some of their other dishes. If you don’t know, it would probably be safer to ask than to guess since you’ll probably guess wrong. Nowadays, though, a good set of espresso coffee cups is nearly mandatory for any kind of social occasion at home among a small group of people.

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