Initially, both Arabs and Europeans drank coffee from bowls. The British were the first to seek a way to avoid burning their hands; a London establishment-Lloyd's Coffee House, founded by the British East India Company in 1688-began using handled cups instead of bowls. These handled cups closely resembled the style of coffee cup familiar to us today.
Before Europe possessed the capability to manufacture porcelain, coffee was typically consumed from vessels made of tinplate. The "Bute" shape-the most common teacup style of the 18th century-originated from the handleless Chinese teacup; by slightly modifying this design to make the vessel taller, the prototype for the coffee cup emerged. The earliest form of the coffee cup was a hybrid, combining the handle style of Etruscan drinking vessels with the shape of Chinese teacups. As the coffee cup evolved away from the bowl-like form, teacups were also influenced, gradually shifting from common shapes like the Bute toward handled designs-a style that eventually acquired the name we know today: the "mug."
By the mid-to-late 19th century, the mug had been introduced into daily life in China from the West. Around 1836, a Danish national opened a coffee house near the site of the present-day Shisanhang (Thirteen Factories) clothing wholesale market in Guangzhou; this was the first coffee house in both Guangzhou and China. In 1853, the British pharmacist J. Lewellyn opened the "Old Deji" (Lao Deji) pharmacy on Huayuan Lane (now East Nanjing Road, near the Bund), which served as Shanghai's first coffee shop.
