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:
“It is extraordinary how the house and the simplest possessions of someone who has been left become so quickly sordid.... Even the stain on the coffee cup seems not coffee but the physical manifestation of one’s inner stain, the fatal blot that from the beginning had marked one for ultimate aloneness.”
—Coleman Dowell (1925–1985)
“It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep.”
—Malcolm X (1925–1965)
“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 10:16.