Coffee cup sleeves, also known as coffee sleeves, coffee clutches, hot cup jackets, paper zarfs, card-zarfs and cup holders, are roughly cylindrical sleeves that fits tightly over handle-less paper coffee cups to insulate the drinker's hands from hot coffee. Coffee sleeves are typically made of textured paperboard, but can be found made of other materials. Coffee sleeves allow coffee houses, fast food restaurants, and other vendors to avoid double-cupping, the practice of using two (or more) nested paper cups for a single hot beverage. Most paper cup holders carry advertisements.
The coffee sleeve was invented and patented by Jay Sorensen in 1993 (under the trademarked name Java Jacket), and are now commonly utilized by coffee houses and other vendors that sell hot beverages dispensed in disposable paper cups. There are a number of patents that cover various coffee sleeves and their aspects. Other people have claimed to invent the coffee sleeve.
There are a number of companies that manufacture coffee sleeves; the top five companies by volume of coffee sleeves sold in the U.S. are, in no particular order, International Paper, BriteVision, LBP Manufacturing, Java Jacket and Labansat & Schulz Manufacturing.
Coffee sleeves should not be confused with fixed cup holders.
In the 2008 movie Made of Honor, Patrick Dempsey's character Thomas 'Tom' Bailey invented the coffee cup sleeve and calls it the "coffee collar." The CEO of Java Jacket, Colleen Sorensen, and her daughter were invited to the set of the film after Java Jacket signed a legal release.
Famous quotes containing the words coffee cup, coffee and/or cup:
“you who put gum in my coffee cup
and worms in my Jell-O, you who let me pretend
you were daddy of the poets, witchman, you stand
for all, for all the bad dead, a Salvation Army Band
who plays for no one. I am cement. The bird in me is blind
as I knife out your name and all your dead kind.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“There has come into existence, chiefly in America, a breed of men who claim to be feminists. They imagine that they have understood “what women want” and that they are capable of giving it to them. They help with the dishes at home and make their own coffee in the office, basking the while in the refulgent consciousness of virtue.... Such men are apt to think of the true male feminists as utterly chauvinistic.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“The cup of Morgan Fay is shattered.
Life is a bitter sage,
And we are weary infants
In a palsied age.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)