Cup orders are usually chosen by colour from a catalogue and judged a year later on a working rail. These four checks close the gap.

Buy thermal mass first

The cup outweighs the espresso ten to one, so its temperature decides the drink’s. A thick preheated wall holds a shot; a thin cold one strips it.

Ask for wall thickness and cup weight on the quote, and store the cups on the machine’s warmer — it is there for exactly this.

Insist on millilitres

Size names lie between makers. An espresso cup is 60-90ml; cortado about 120-130ml; cappuccino about 150-180ml.

A shot in a 200ml “small” spreads thin, breaks its crema and goes cold. If the quote says “small” instead of a number, ask again.

Ask where the print sits

On-glaze decals sit on the surface and fade under commercial washing on a schedule. In-glaze and under-glaze decoration is fired into or beneath the glassy surface and outlives the cup.

The oldest cup in any café is the demonstration. Get the method named on the quote.

Check the rim and the stack

Cups chip on the rim, from other cups — stacking and racking bring rim against rim dozens of times a day. A rolled, thickened rim changes the odds completely.

Stack five sample cups: they should stand straight. A leaning stack is a breakage schedule.

Have the record held

Glaze varies between firings and suppliers forget. If the glaze reference, artwork, method and sizes are held against your account, a top-up matches the rail it joins.

Buy spare stock in the first firing too — same-firing cups match in a way even a good reorder cannot.