Small Paper Cups Printed for Short Drinks

Who orders small paper cups

Small cups suit any business where the drink is short or the visit is quick. A café pouring cortados needs a cup that looks full, not half empty, because a strong coffee rattling around in a 12oz cup looks stingy.

Offices and waiting rooms like them because a smaller cup cuts waste from drinks left to go cold on a desk. Caterers use them at conferences, where guests grab a tea between talks and rarely want a large one.

Farm shops and garden centres with a drinks hatch often stock two small sizes rather than one big one. It keeps queues moving and gives customers a cheap first purchase.

• Speciality cafés serving espresso-based drinks
• Bakeries offering a coffee with a pastry
• Offices with tea and coffee points
• Conference and exhibition caterers
• Garden centres and farm shops with a drinks hatch

Choosing between 4oz, 6oz, 7oz and 8oz

These four sizes sit close together, so it helps to start from the drink rather than the number. Pour your usual serve into a measuring jug and leave a little headroom for milk or a lid.

A cup filled right to the rim spills the moment someone walks off with it. Around one centimetre of space below the lip is a sensible target for anything hot.

The table below shows how cafés and offices tend to use each one.

Why 7oz and 8oz are not interchangeable

On paper the gap is one ounce, but in practice these cups are made for different jobs. A 7oz cup is a common office and dispenser size, while an 8oz cup is the café standard for a flat white.

The rim and height differ too, so a lid made for one will not sit properly on the other. If your drinks mostly come from a machine in a staff room, look at our 7oz paper cups for offices before settling on 8oz.

Cafés that serve both machine tea and barista coffee sometimes order each size with the same print. That way the cupboard stays tidy and nobody grabs the wrong lid.

Single, double or ripple wall on a small cup

Short drinks are often very hot and drunk quickly, so the wall matters more than the size suggests. A single wall cup is light and fine for tea held by the rim or used with a sleeve.

Double wall adds an air gap that keeps fingers comfortable around a fresh espresso. Ripple wall gives a ridged grip and a more tactile feel in the hand.

Our guide to single versus double wall cups compares the three in detail, including how each one stacks in storage.

Fitting your design onto a small cup

A 4oz cup has far less print space than a 12oz one, and that changes what works. Long taglines, web addresses and small icons tend to blur into the curve of the cup.

Keep the logo bold, give it room on both sides and let one strong colour do the work. Our guide to designing a printed cup covers safe areas and wrap layouts.

We send a free digital proof showing where everything sits on your chosen size, and we keep revising it until you are happy to sign it off.

Lids, sleeves and carriers for small sizes

Every small size has its own lid, so order lids against the exact cup size, not the size above or below it. A sip lid suits walk-away coffee, while a flat lid works for tasters on a tray.

Sleeves are rarely needed on double or ripple wall cups, but a single wall 8oz cup of tea benefits from one. For office rounds, cup carriers for small rounds hold four short drinks without spills.

Tasting events are the one place where small cups often go lidless. A tray of uncovered 4oz cups lets people see the drink, which helps when you are sampling a new blend or a seasonal hot chocolate.

How to order small cups

Most orders follow the same path, and you can send a mixed order covering two or three small sizes at once. Start through our quick quote form and we reply with a written quote for each size.

1. Pick your sizes and the wall for each one.
2. Send your logo as AI, PDF, EPS, SVG, PNG or JPG.
3. Choose print on one side, two sides or a full wrap.
4. Sign off the free digital proof once it looks right.
5. Your small cups go to print and are ready within 4 to 6 working days.
6. A tracked parcel reaches you 2 to 3 working days later.

Keeping small cups in step with your larger sizes

Customers notice when the espresso cup looks nothing like the latte cup. Using the same colours and logo across sizes makes the whole menu feel planned rather than pieced together.

We scale the artwork to each cup so the logo sits at the same visual height from 4oz upwards. You can see every size we print in our full paper cup size range.

A matching set also helps staff, who can pick the right cup by colour band or logo size without reading the base.

Stock levels for small cups

Small cups disappear faster than people expect, because they are the default for samples, staff drinks and the quick top-up. Count a normal week of short drinks before deciding on quantity.

If you sell espresso and flat whites in roughly equal numbers, order those two sizes in similar amounts. A single box of printed cups that runs out midweek leaves you serving in plain stock, which undoes the point of printing.

Common mistakes with small cups

Most problems with small cups come from treating them like shrunken large cups. These are the slips we see most often when proofing.

Catching them at proof stage costs nothing, so ask us if you are unsure about any of them.

• Ordering 8oz lids for a 7oz cup
• Placing a wide logo that wraps out of view
• Using body text smaller than the eye can read on a curve
• Choosing single wall for very hot espresso with no sleeve
• Ordering one size when the menu really needs two

Delivery and reprints

We ship small cup orders free and tracked to the UK. Read how our tracked delivery works for timings by region.

If a box of small cups arrives misprinted or damaged, send us photos within 10 days and we will reprint it or refund you.