Turkish Cup Measurements: Su Bardağı vs Çay Bardağı vs US Cup
A full breakdown of Turkish su bardağı (200ml) and çay bardağı (110ml) measurements versus US and UK cups, with gram/ml conversions for the most common Turkish recipe ingredients.
If you've ever tried to cook a Turkish recipe using a US or UK measuring cup and ended up with a soupy dough or a dry, crumbly one, the problem probably wasn't your technique — it was the cup. Turkish home cooking runs almost entirely on two vessels that have nothing to do with the US 240ml measuring cup: the su bardağı (water glass, about 200ml) for most dry and liquid ingredients, and the much smaller çay bardağı (tea glass, about 110ml) reserved for small quantities like oil, lemon juice, or yogurt in a marinade. Neither is standardized the way a US measuring cup is — they're literally the everyday drinking glasses found in Turkish kitchens — which means the volumes are traditional approximations, not lab-precise units, but they're consistent enough across Turkish recipe writing that treating su bardağı as 200ml and çay bardağı as 110ml will get you very close every time. This guide translates the most common Turkish recipe ingredients from bardağı measurements into grams and milliliters so you can cook Turkish recipes accurately wherever you are.
Su bardağı (water glass) = 200ml
The su bardağı is the default measuring unit in the overwhelming majority of Turkish recipes, used for flour, sugar, rice, oil, water, milk, and yogurt alike. It holds approximately 200ml, noticeably smaller than the US cup's 240ml — a difference of 40ml, or about 17%, that compounds fast in a recipe with multiple su bardağı measurements. If you substitute a US cup 1:1 for su bardağı without adjusting, you'll systematically over-measure every ingredient in the recipe by roughly a fifth.
Çay bardağı (tea glass) = 110ml
The çay bardağı is the small, tulip-shaped glass Turkish tea is traditionally served in, and it shows up in recipes for smaller-volume ingredients — a çay bardağı of oil for a dressing, of lemon juice, or of milk for a glaze. At roughly 110ml, it's less than half the volume of a su bardağı, so mistaking one for the other (an easy error when skimming a translated recipe) results in more than double or less than half the intended amount.
💡 팁: As a rule of thumb: if a Turkish recipe measures flour, sugar, rice, or water by bardağı, it almost certainly means su bardağı. Çay bardağı shows up mainly for small liquid additions, not staple dry ingredients.
Flour: 1 su bardağı ≈ 100g
A su bardağı of all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled the same way you would a US cup, weighs approximately 100 grams — proportionally consistent with the US cup's 120g given the smaller 200ml volume. A Turkish bread or pastry recipe calling for '4 su bardağı un' means roughly 400g of flour, not 480g, which is what you'd get by mistakenly treating su bardağı as a full US cup.
Sugar: 1 su bardağı ≈ 160-165g
Granulated sugar measured in a su bardağı weighs about 160-165 grams, again scaling down proportionally from the US cup's 200g by roughly the same 200ml/240ml ratio. This matters most in Turkish dessert recipes like şerbet-soaked baklava or revani, where sugar syrup ratios are precise and a 17-20% overage in sugar will make the syrup noticeably too thick and too sweet.
Rice: 1 su bardağı ≈ 165-170g raw
Raw rice in a su bardağı weighs about 165-170 grams, scaled down from the US cup's roughly 185-200g. This is the standard measurement for Turkish pilav recipes, where the water-to-rice ratio is also traditionally given in bardağı — commonly '1 su bardağı pirinç, 1.5-2 su bardağı su' (1 glass rice to 1.5-2 glasses water), a ratio that holds regardless of which measuring vessel you use as long as you're consistent, since it's a ratio, not an absolute.
Oil: 1 çay bardağı ≈ 100g / 110ml
Liquid oil in a çay bardağı weighs almost exactly its volume in grams (100-105g for 110ml, since cooking oil's density is close to but slightly under 1g/ml), making it one of the more straightforward conversions. Turkish recipes frequently call for '1 çay bardağı sıvı yağ' (1 tea glass of vegetable oil) in dough or böğrüce recipes — that's about 100-105g or roughly 7-8 US tablespoons, not a full 1/2 cup as a çay bardağı might visually suggest to someone unfamiliar with the glass.
Quick conversion table (su bardağı and çay bardağı to US cups)
1 su bardağı (200ml) = 0.83 US cups; 1 çay bardağı (110ml) = 0.46 US cups, or just under 1/2 cup. In the other direction, 1 US cup (240ml) = 1.2 su bardağı, or 2.18 çay bardağı. For quick mental math while cooking: multiply su bardağı count by 0.83 to get US cups, or by 200 to get milliliters directly — milliliters are the least error-prone unit to convert through since they avoid compounding rounding errors from cup fractions.
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How many ml is a Turkish su bardağı?
A su bardağı (water glass) is approximately 200ml, which is smaller than a US cup (240ml) by about 17%. It's the default measuring unit in most Turkish recipes for flour, sugar, rice, oil, and liquids.
How many ml is a Turkish çay bardağı?
A çay bardağı (tea glass) is approximately 110ml, less than half the volume of a su bardağı. It's used in Turkish recipes for smaller quantities like oil, lemon juice, or milk rather than staple dry ingredients.
Is a Turkish su bardağı the same as a US cup?
No. A su bardağı is about 200ml while a US cup is 240ml, a difference of roughly 17%. Substituting a US cup 1:1 for su bardağı in a Turkish recipe will over-measure every ingredient by about a fifth, which is enough to noticeably change texture in doughs and syrups.
How much flour is in 1 su bardağı?
One su bardağı of all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled, weighs approximately 100 grams — proportionally consistent with the US cup's 120g given the su bardağı's smaller 200ml volume.
Why do Turkish recipes use glasses instead of standardized measuring cups?
Turkish home cooking traditionally uses whatever glass is common in the kitchen — the su bardağı and çay bardağı are everyday drinking glasses, not laboratory-calibrated tools — but their volumes (roughly 200ml and 110ml) are consistent enough across recipe writing to treat as standard units once you know the conversion.
The single most reliable fix for Turkish recipe measurement confusion is to convert everything to milliliters or grams before you start cooking, rather than trying to eyeball su bardağı or çay bardağı against a US or UK measuring cup you have on hand. Su bardağı at 200ml and çay bardağı at 110ml are consistent enough across Turkish recipe writing that once you've internalized those two numbers, converting any Turkish recipe becomes simple arithmetic rather than guesswork.
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