Porcelain cup with ‘Serbok Kopi Chap Kupu’ logo

The ‘kopitiam’ (coffee shop) was a male-dominated meeting place where bachelors congregated for breakfast consisting of toast, eggs and a beverage. It has become an important feature of Singapore’s landscape since the 1950s.This is a porcelain cup typically used for serving hot coffee and tea, often drunk with sugar and condensed milk. Customers would cool their beverage by pouring it into the saucer and drinking from it. Porcelain cups and saucers bearing floral motif prints or logos of the tea and coffee suppliers were distributed by the beverage companies together with coffee powder and tea leaves.