Metric Teaspoon (tsp)

Cooking & barCurrent unit

Exactly 5 mL, used in most countries.

1 metric teaspoon = 0.005 liters (exactly).

About the metric teaspoon

Five milliliters is the metric teaspoon, a figure so tidy that it has become the working definition for medicine and food labels. The traditional British teaspoon was an imperial fluid drachm, one eighth of an imperial fluid ounce, about 3.55 milliliters, and the American one was 4.93 mL. US nutrition labeling law now defines a teaspoon as exactly 5 milliliters.

The 5 mL teaspoon matters most when dosing medicine. Kitchen spoons vary widely, with one Greek survey of 71 household teaspoons finding volumes from 2.5 to 7.3 mL, so measuring spoons, syringes and calibrated cups are the safer tools. It also anchors the metric cooking system: three teaspoons make a 15 mL tablespoon, and fifty fit in a 250 mL metric cup. Australia keeps a 5 mL teaspoon but counts four of them in its larger 20 mL tablespoon.

Sources: Wikipedia: Teaspoon; 21 CFR 101.9: nutrition labeling household measures; Wikipedia: Metric cup

Metric Teaspoon conversion chart

1 metric teaspoon expressed in every other volume unit:

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