Anthora
Encyclopedia
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
cup design that has become iconic of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
daily life — its name is a play on the word amphora
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
.
The cup was originally designed by Leslie Buck
Leslie Buck
Leslie Buck was an American business executive and Holocaust survivor who designed the Anthora coffee cup, which has become an iconic symbol of New York City since its introduction in the 1960s.-Early life:...
of the Sherri Cup Co. in 1963, to appeal to Greek-owned coffee shops in New York City — and was later copied heavily by other companies. The genuine Anthora depicts an image of an Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
amphora
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
, a meander design on the top and bottom rim, and the words "WE ARE HAPPY TO SERVE YOU" in a font
Font
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
that resembles ancient Greek writing. The blue and white colors were inspired by the flag of Greece
Flag of Greece
The flag of Greece , officially recognized by Greece as one of its national symbols, is based on nine equal horizontal stripes of blue alternating with white...
. The cup subsequently became the metropolitan area's definitive coffee-to-go cup;
Sales of the cup reached 500 million in 1994 (when it was by far the most popular design for the company's cups ), but fell to about 200 million cups annually in 2005. One New York Times writer in 1995 called the Anthora "perhaps the most successful cup in history". By 2007, it was mentioned in passing in a New York Times television review as "one of those endangered artifacts".
The trademark was acquired by the Solo Cup Company
Solo Cup Company
Solo Cup Company is a manufacturer of consumer packaging products: disposable beverage cups, disposable plates and bowls. Solo Cup Company is located in Lake Forest, Illinois, and in 2006 had sales of $2.4 billion.-History:...
, which licenses sales of the cup. The Anthora coffee cup is featured in movies and television shows that are set in New York such as NYPD Blue
NYPD Blue
NYPD Blue is an American television police drama set in New York City, exploring the internal and external struggles of the fictional 15th precinct of Manhattan...
, Nurse Jackie
Nurse Jackie
Nurse Jackie is an American series that premiered on June 8, 2009, on Showtime, Movie Central and The Movie Network.The series stars Edie Falco as the title character Jackie Peyton, an emergency room nurse at All Saints' Hospital in New York City...
, Castle
Castle (TV series)
Castle is an American comedy-drama television series, which premiered on ABC on March 9, 2009. The series is produced by Beacon Pictures and ABC Studios. On January 10, 2011, Castle was renewed for a fourth season...
, and the Law & Order franchise
Law & Order franchise
The Law & Order franchise is a number of related American television series created by Dick Wolf and originally broadcast on NBC, all of which deal with some aspect of the criminal justice system...
.
Buck never made royalties
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
from his design, but as a salesman he was remunerated handsomely from the success of the product. When he retired from Sherri Cup Co. in 1992, he was presented with 10,000 Anthoras printed with a testimonial inscription. On the occasion of Buck's death in 2010, a New York Times writer described the motto on the cup as having "welcome intimations of tenderness, succor and humility".