How many ounces is a cup of coffee?
A cup of coffee is 8 fl oz by US measuring standards, 5 fl oz on most coffee makers, and 8 to 16 oz at a café. Who’s asking matters. Bakers mean the measuring cup. Your brewer’s manual means 5 oz. A barista means whatever cup is in reach, and at most of the shops we print for that’s an 8, 12 or 16.
| Which cup | Ounces | In ml | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Measuring cup | 8 fl oz | 237 ml | NIST Handbook 44 |
| Nutrition label | about 8.1 fl oz | 240 ml | FDA, 21 CFR 101.9 |
| Coffee maker “cup” | 5 fl oz | 148 ml | Hamilton Beach and Bunn manuals |
| Café cup | 8, 12 or 16 oz | 237 to 473 ml | Our size chart |
How many café cups a pot fills
Plan coffee for an office morning or a catering job by the brewer’s “cups” and you’ll come up short. A 12-cup machine makes 60 oz. That fills five 12 oz cups, and then it’s empty.
| Batch | 8 oz cups | 12 oz cups | 16 oz cups |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-cup commercial brewer, 50 oz | 6 | 4 | 3 |
| 12-cup home brewer, 60 oz | 7 | 5 | 3 |
| 1 gallon, 128 oz | 16 | 10 | 8 |
Those counts are for cups filled to the top. Leave room for milk, or stop a little short so the lid goes on clean, and a pot goes a bit further. Buy cups for the number of people anyway, not the number of pots.
How much caffeine is in an 8, 12 or 16 oz cup of coffee?
Brewed coffee runs about 40 mg of caffeine per 100 g in USDA’s FoodData Central, so call it 95 mg for 8 oz. Same brew in a 12 oz cup: about 140. In a 16: about 190. Real-world coffee is all over the place, though. FDA‘s own range for a 12 oz brewed coffee is 113 to 247 mg, and it says most adults can have about 400 mg a day without ill effects. One 20 oz drip can eat up more than half of that.
Questions we get
How many cups of coffee does a 12-cup coffee maker make?
Twelve of its own 5 oz cups, so 60 oz. Poured into real cups, that’s seven 8s, five 12s or three 16s.
Is a coffee maker cup 5 oz or 6 oz?
Every manual we checked says 5: Hamilton Beach, Bunn and OXO, whose manual reads “4 cups (20 fl oz)”. You will see 6 oz quoted online too. The water lines on your own carafe settle it.
Is 12 oz a normal coffee cup size?
Yes. It’s the middle size at most cafés, a tall at Starbucks, and one of the sizes we sell most in both single wall and double wall. It’s half again what a measuring cup calls a cup, which is 8 fl oz.