US Cups to US Teaspoons (cup to tsp)

1 US cup equals 48 US teaspoons exactly.

1 US cup = 48 US teaspoons

How to convert US cups to US teaspoons

To convert US cups to US teaspoons, multiply the number of US cups by 48. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply US teaspoons by 0.02083333333 (rounded).

US teaspoons = US cups × 48

Example: 10 US cups = 480 US teaspoons.

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

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

US Teaspoon (tsp)

US customaryCurrent unit

One sixth of a US fluid ounce, exactly 4.92892159375 mL. Commonly rounded to 5 mL in recipes.

Teaspoons arrived with tea. Small spoons were common in Europe from at least the 13th century, and the earliest cited mention of a teaspoon is a London Gazette advertisement from 27 December 1686. Britain's Commutation Act of 1784 cut the tea tax from 119 percent to 12.5 percent, tea became cheap, and cups and spoons grew with it. By the 1850s the culinary teaspoon had settled as one third of a tablespoon.

The US teaspoon is one sixth of a US fluid ounce, exactly 4.92892159375 milliliters, though for nutrition labels and medicine it is rounded to 5 mL. Apothecaries once called the small spoon cochleare minus, to distinguish it from the larger cochleare majus. Household spoons are poor measuring tools: one study of 71 kitchen teaspoons found volumes from 2.5 to 7.3 milliliters, which is why dosing instructions point to standard measuring spoons or syringes.

1 US teaspoon = 0.004928921594 liters (approximately).

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

Related conversions

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