I don't know if I'd call it a scam, carol, but I've noticed for quite some time that coffee maker manufacturers must use a delicate tea cup to measure their advertised coffee output. I have a four cup coffee maker that gives me two adequate mugs of coffee and not a drop more. Very puzzling mathematics IMO. :-)

I agree with anne :-) The 'standard' for a cup of coffee is 4-6 ounces, not 8!! Why, I have no idea. I have a french press labeled as an "8 cup" model but holds at most 32 ounces. It provides just enough coffee to fill my mug twice. French presses are usually at the lower end of cup volumes and automatic coffee makers tend more to the 6 ounce per cup volumes.

I have a new coffee maker and I noticed the same thing - the carafe says 12 cups but it is only about 6 mugs of coffee.

It's not a "measuring cup" of coffee. The Coffee Brewing Institute has used the standard of 1 CBI measure (which is 2 T) of ground coffee to 6 oz of water for standard brewing. When you look at cans that say how many cups it will make, it's usually based on a 6 oz water measure. However there is no defined standard as to how much will be in a cup of coffee. They've always said to measure the water and measure the coffee grounds to make your coffee.

And don't forget when you try to fill a measuring cup, especially using the dry measure, it'll spill quite easily and someone will sue the maker when they spill the coffee on themselves.

And coffee cups vary SO much in size, there's no way to please everyone.

Here's an example of the label defining size:

The 'standard' for a cup of coffee is 4-6 ounces, not 8!! Why, I have no idea. - gardengal48

I think it might have something to do with the fact that coffee used to be considered a beverage of the upper class to be sipped and enjoyed. Now you can blame it on the super-sizing of coffee cups by Starbucks with your short, tall, grande, venti, and now trenta iced of 31 ounces.

For me however, coffee is on the verge of becoming a food group along with, of course, chocolate.

it's funny you mention smaller than 8 oz. cups. I was curious about that too. We use Huge mugs 14 oz. so I measured my Corning ware cups. 8 0z.! Who would have thought they were that much. And these cups are around 14 yrs. old. I still feel cheated. 10 cups should be by cup measure, not what ever measure the company says it is.

Much like food portions sizes, beverage sizes seem to have grown over the past 50-100 years. Long before coffee mugs became standard fare, hot beverages like tea or coffee were served in tea/coffee cups. These tended to have a filled-to-the-brim volume of 6oz but are typically never filled to the brim so more like 5 oz of actual liquid. I would assume that most coffee makers - even today - are based on this cup volume, not a measuring cup volume of 8 oz.

Coffee mugs are typically 10-12 oz in volume, so your 5-6 oz coffee volume measurement will only fill about half way. In my mind a 10 cup coffee maker should be expected to produce only 4-5 mugs of coffee.

As others have said, it's a vernacular problem. When folks hear or see the word "cup," their minds automatically go to the standard 8-ounce measuring cup. Usually (more solid) food is spoken of in "servings," such as "makes 8 servings," or "serves 4 to 6." But "cups" when speaking of coffee has always meant a 5-ounce serving. (You put 6 ounces of water in the pot for each "cup" of coffee because an ounce of it is lost to steam.)

We have a KitchenAid 14-cup coffee maker, which I love. They're hard to find, especially in all white, so I bought a second one a long time ago to have on hand for when this one finally bites the dust.

My "Cup at a Time" by Black and Decker, a gift from a friend a while ago, makes a mug, when I fill it to the line from a mug almost full ... to drain into another mug to which sugar was added at the start.

I'd left a bit of room at the top for cream.

ole joyfuelled ... with fuelling help from coffee

Also confusing are the "cups" for rice makers. The aroma cookers all come with a measuring cup to use with their cookers, those measuring cups do not hold a cup. So if you happen to use a normal measuring cup of 1 cup of rice and then use the mark in the pot for your water level it won't be correct. You need to use the provided cup which will correspond to the water mark lines.

I agree with Lindsey. Take my case - I have "one cup" of coffee a day. I use one from a set of 16 oz cups and I use a pour-through ceramic cone into which I put about 30 grams of freshly ground coffee. If using a different size scoop, I can weigh or estimate the volume in the cone, so it's not really X number of scoops either. I don't know the size of the scoop I use, through trial and error I've found about 30 grams is right. Weaker or less fresh beans, I'll use more.

Tell me how much coffee I drink. There really is no standard measure.

When cooking dry things in water, be it rice or steel cut oats or whatever, cooking guidance usually calls for a ratio, not an amount. Rice in a pot is 2 to 1, steel cut oats are 4 to 1, etc. It doesn't matter 1 of what, 2 of what, or 4 of what, etc. "Of what" makes no difference, the ratio is what counts.

A very popular restaurant here puts a carafe of coffee on your table with breakfast. I love that, because the mugs they use are the small brown mugs. The server would be run off their feet trying to keep them filled.