Unexpected Again! So This Is How Coffee Cups and Saucers Are Used?!

Question Again: What is the Purpose of a Coffee Saucer?

Ordinary person: It's for holding the spoon used to stir coffee.

Cantonese person: I firmly believe it's for holding bones!

Old fans of Coffee Workshop: I know this one! It's for drinking coffee!

Excellent! Everyone's answers are correct!

So if the purpose of a coffee saucer is for drinking coffee, then what is the purpose of a coffee cup?

Ordinary person: You're not following the script! It's for holding water to rinse your mouth...

Cantonese person: It's for sipping from the coffee saucer!

Old fans of Coffee Workshop: First pour the brewed coffee into a cup, then pour it into the saucer to cool down before drinking!

Oh~ Wrong answer! The purpose of a coffee cup is to filter out sediment! (Old fans: But your previous article clearly said that!) Yes, that's right! The writer did indeed share this piece of trivia with everyone in a previous article!

The Historical Evolution of Coffee Cups and Saucers

In Europe before the 17th century, spoons, cups, and plates were rare items, and there were no cups specifically designed for drinking coffee. Therefore, whether nobility or commoners, everyone would brew a large pot of coffee and then drink it from earthenware bowls. It wasn't until Zheng He's voyages to the Western Oceans brought Chinese porcelain to Europe that people began to imitate Chinese teapots, teacups, and tea saucers, creating elegant cup and saucer sets specifically for drinking coffee. Although there were now cups specifically for drinking coffee, they were expensive and scarce, so only nobility could use them, while commoners continued to drink coffee from bowls.

Although porcelain was beautiful, its thermal conductivity was also excellent. European nobles, accustomed to earthenware, found porcelain visually appealing but painfully hot to hold (and also hot to the mouth!), making every coffee drinking experience quite awkward! Not elegant at all! So they came up with the idea of pouring coffee from the cup into the saucer to cool it down before sipping. Therefore, in many famous European paintings, we can see many depicted figures drinking coffee with a cup in their right hand and a saucer in their left...

This practice soon spread among the common people~ Commoners began to imitate the nobility, starting to drink coffee from plates. Although by the mid-18th century, European craftsmen began making containers with handles, and materials were no longer limited to pure porcelain glaze, making prices more accessible to commoners, so more coffee cups began to enter the lives of ordinary people. However, the practice of drinking coffee from saucers remained popular among the masses, and even as people migrated, this method of drinking coffee from saucers was brought beyond Europe.

The Indonesian Innovation: Upside-Down Coffee

When this practice reached Indonesia, although people also had the habit of drinking coffee from saucers, the method of pouring back and forth was too complicated and time-consuming! Moreover, no matter how you poured, coffee sediment still remained, which greatly affected the taste! So locals devised a way to more conveniently drink coffee without burning their hands or mouths, while maintaining the temperature of the coffee in the cup and taking a sip that wasn't too hot and sediment-free, maximizing the advantages of both coffee cups and saucers!

And that was to drink the coffee upside down! This way, not only did they avoid holding hot cups, but it also prevented mosquitoes and dust from falling into the coffee. The coffee in the cup could stay warm while the sediment wouldn't escape, and the seeping coffee could achieve a cooling effect! It was simply five benefits in one!

The method is quite simple: put roughly ground beans in the coffee cup, then add milk, condensed milk, or sugar according to the customer's preference, then add a spoonful of boiling water, and finally cover with the saucer and flip it over! With the right technique, there won't be too large a gap between the coffee cup and saucer, and the coffee liquid will slowly seep out~

When the seeping coffee rises to a certain level, it won't continue rising. However, when this method was first invented, it greatly relied on one's coffee-drinking skills. Because you had to press down on the top of the coffee cup with your hand, otherwise you'd spill coffee all over yourself... Later, the coffee stall owner who invented this drinking method decided to provide straws!

First, it eliminated the worry that the hand pressing the coffee cup might misbehave while drinking, causing coffee to spill all over; second, it made drinking slightly more relaxed and elegant. After this method of drinking upside-down coffee with straws appeared, locals found it very acceptable! So more and more coffee stall owners began serving upside-down coffee, and it thus became one of Indonesia's unique local coffee specialties.

Watching the coffee shop owner's skilled operation, the writer couldn't help but think of Tao Dayu singing: "Come, let's flip the Earth!" And then exclaim: During the process of drinking coffee, the coffee cup's situation is really quite awkward, hahaha!

Image source: Internet

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