Guide
The Coffee Cup Museum is in the historic Harput quarter of Elazığ, and it opened on 29 October 2023, dedicated to the centenary of the Republic. It was created by the Elazığ Tourism, Culture and Promotion Association with the support of the provincial governor's office and the municipality.
The idea behind it is a Turkish proverb — a cup of coffee is remembered for forty years — and the museum positions itself accordingly, as a museum of remembrance as much as of objects. Its stated purpose is to keep alive the roughly five centuries of coffee culture in Anatolia through the cups themselves.
The collection began with 2,023 cups at the opening and, by the museum's own count, passed 7,000 by 2025, which it describes as one of the largest collections of coffee cups in the world. Among them are pieces of 100 to 150 years and some said to be 300 years old. The one the museum singles out is the cup from which Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was served coffee during his visit to Elazığ in 1937.
What visitors are meant to find is the story attached to each cup rather than the cup alone. The names of those who donated them are written on copper plates and set beside them, which turns the collection into a record of individual memory as well as a display.
