Australian Tablespoons to US Cups (tbsp (AU) to cup)

1 Australian tablespoon equals 0.08453505675 US cups (rounded).

1 Australian tablespoon = 0.08453505675 US cups

How to convert Australian tablespoons to US cups

To convert Australian tablespoons to US cups, multiply the number of Australian tablespoons by 0.08453505675. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply US cups by 11.82941183 (rounded).

US cups = Australian tablespoons × 0.08453505675

Example: 10 Australian tablespoons = 0.8453505675 US cups.

Pints, quarts, gallons and fluid ounces differ between the US and the UK. Units are labeled 'US' or 'imperial' to avoid confusion.

About these units

Australian Tablespoon (tbsp (AU))

Cooking & barCurrent unit

Exactly 20 mL, which makes it larger than the 15 mL tablespoon used in the US and UK.

Australia is the odd one out among tablespoon sizes. Wikipedia reports that the Metric Conversion Board promulgated a 20 mL definition in the 1970s as part of metrication, and calls it the Australian official definition. That is about 1 and a third of the 15 mL international metric tablespoon, and exactly four metric teaspoons of 5 mL each.

Elsewhere the spoon is smaller. The common UK and US definitions are both exactly 15 mL, while the older customary spoons were half a fluid ounce, about 14.2 mL in Britain and 14.8 mL in the United States. The extra volume matters to a cook following an Australian recipe abroad, where the same tablespoon of liquid ingredients would come up a quarter short. The figure used here is exactly 0.02 liter, and Wikipedia's article is tagged as needing more citations.

1 Australian tablespoon = 0.02 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Tablespoon; NIST SP 811 Appendix B.8

US Cup (cup)

US customaryCurrent unit

One sixteenth of a US gallon, 236.588 mL (8 US fluid ounces). The standard US recipe cup.

Cups began as household drinking vessels, not scientific units, which is why they remain the messiest measures in the kitchen. The US customary cup was defined by slicing up the gallon: half a pint, or eight US fluid ounces, about 236.6 milliliters. Unlike the larger units, nobody ever fixed it to a physical vessel, so it exists only as a fraction of the gallon.

The customary cup is not the only American cup. For nutrition labels, US regulation defines a cup as exactly 240 milliliters, a rounder figure that sits slightly above the customary size. Packaged foods therefore list a serving in the legal cup while a measuring cup from the hardware store follows the customary definition. The gap is 3.4 milliliters, which hardly matters for soup but can matter in baking. Cup measures also hide the weight of dry ingredients, since a cup of sifted flour and a cup of packed flour differ substantially, which is why much of the world prefers grams.

1 US cup = 0.2365882365 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Cup (unit); NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume; 21 CFR 101.9: nutrition labeling household measures

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