The Coolest Coffee Cups From Around The World

Coffee cups don't have to be boring. In fact, they can even be art.

World traveler and drip coffee devotee Henry Hargreaves has one of the most impressive coffee cup collections in the world, with more than 500 cups from around the globe, which he shares on the popular Instagram account, @coffeecupsoftheworld. Now he's sharing some of the most iconic cups at an exhibition at the Ora Gallery in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood through the prime coffee-drinking month of November.

Though Hargreaves's account now features a global array of cups, it started at the popular restaurant Five Leaves in Brooklyn with a single cup designed by a tattoo artist. "I felt like I had a piece of art," he says of the beautifully designed cardboard cup. From there, his project was born.

Coffee became a channel through which Hargreaves could explore and discover new cities. For him, the cups became a souvenir and a narrative of the cafés he visited. "It's about the experience of drinking coffee in different places and how the cup can kind of reflect the culture in which its serving," he says.

While the account has more than 34,000 followers, Hargreaves says it grew organically, mostly from cafés who reposted his images and wanted to get involved with the project. Other coffee hounds soon followed and started sending Hargreaves submissions. Now, about one in 10 photos on the account is his own, and the rest are curated from users all over the world. "The fun thing is when someone over in Singapore makes a submission to the account of someone he's never met on the other side of the world," Hargreaves says.

Hargreaves shoots more than just coffee cups and has a separate personal Instagram account. He says he uses his background in food photography as a tool to communicate narratives in a different way.

His images have been turned into prints, which encompass 12 iconic cups from six different cities including Brooklyn, New York, London, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Melbourne.

Though he has cups from all over the world, Hargreaves's favorites are two cups from New York: Happy Bones in Soho and Butler in Williamsburg. The exhibit will have an emphasis on cups from New York City, where Hargreaves said he has always found most of his favorite designs. 

The New York exhibition, which will be open Wednesdays through Sundays, from 1 to 7 p.m., for the month of November, will also have a pop-up shop, where 12 artists will showcase and sell their own coffee cup designs—complete with free coffee." This is the moment that Instagram comes to life," Hargreaves says. "It celebrates design in something that is often overlooked."

Those who aren't able to make it to the exhibition can check out some of the greatest coffee cups from around the world, seen here. Get ready for the best coffee break you've had all year.