zarf

plural zarfs · alternative zarph · alternative zurf · alternative zurph

1. An ornamental container designed to hold a coffee cup or teacup and insulate it from the hand of the drinker.

   In presenting the coffee, the servant holds the foot of the zarf with his thumb and first finger. In receiving the fingán and zarf, he makes use of both hands, place the left beneath and the right above at the same instant.

   1860, Edward William Lane, “V: Domestic Life”, in An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, page 138

   1 more example

   Cenk Girginol, a Turkish coffee consultant and author of the book Coffee: From the Soil to the Cup, says zarfs began to be used at the end of the 17th century and beginning of the 18th century. […] By the 19th century, goldsmiths in Geneva were making zarfs to export, according to the Khalili Collections. Recent auctions and museum collections show zarfs that were made in France, Syria, Iran and Switzerland. A zarf in the Louvre's collection, covered in emeralds and diamonds, was owned by Abdul Hamid II, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

   2025 September 17, James Doubek, “What to know about zarfs, the fanciest way to drink coffee”, in Word of the Week, NPR, retrieved 17 Sep 2025