Cookbook:Cup
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A cup is a US unit of volume measurement of volume equal to 16 US tablespoons, ½ US pint, ¼ US quart, or 8 US fluid ounces.
A US cup is about 237 ml. Rougher equivalents are 240 ml and 250 ml, where the latter fits nicely with a US pint of 500 ml and a pound of 500 g. On the other hand, the former divides nicely into smaller units: 1/2 cup is about 120 ml, 1/3 cup is about 80 ml, and 1/4 cup is about 60 ml.
A metric cup is 250 mL in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK. These countries previously used the imperial system, in which a cup would be 284 ml or 6/5 US cups.
Traditionally, in the United Kingdom, there are three measurement units for cooking the names of which contain the word, ‘cup’. The first one is the breakfast cup (named after a cup for drinking tea or coffee while eating breakfast), which is occassioanlly shortened to just ‘cup’; 1 breakfast cup is 8 imperial fluid ounces. The second one is the teacup, the equivalence of 5 imperial fluid ounces. The third one is the coffee cup (named after a small cup for after‑dinner coffee served to aid digestion), the equivalence of 21⁄2 imperial fluid ounces.
A Japanese rice cup is 180 ml. A measuring cup of this size is sometimes included with rice cookers.
A teacup, often seen as a unit of measurement in Indian recipes, is about 190 ml, or ⅔ of an imperial (UK) cup.