Coffee was likely first discovered in Ethiopia, but it became a ritual in Turkey around the 13th century, with a formality compared to tea ceremonies in China and Japan and a role in hospitality and diplomacy. It was served in small handleless cups called fincan, and to protect the drinker’s fingers the cup sat inside a zarf, from the Arabic for container or envelope, plural zuruf, zarflar in Turkish. Because the zarf was what guests saw and held, the Ottoman elite turned it into a display of wealth in silver, gold, copper, and brass, worked with filigree, chasing, and niello and set with precious stones.

By the 19th century, enamel workshops in Geneva, known for luxury watches, were producing ornate zarf sets for export to the Islamic world, decorated with musical instruments and military trophies. Artisans boiled horn and tortoiseshell to press them into molds, carved ivory with no margin for error, and made rare wooden zarfs from aromatic hardwoods that released scent when the hot coffee warmed them. In 1991 the corrugated cardboard cup sleeve was invented, and dictionaries still call it a zarf.

• The zarf let a delicate porcelain, glass, or turned wood fincan stay mostly hidden while the holder did the showing off.
• Corrugated sleeves insulate with pockets of trapped air, doing the job ivory and wood once did.
• Zarf is worth 16 points in Scrabble before any bonus squares.
• A 2009 Atlanta Journal Constitution obituary remembered Deborah Sappett, 69, for beating her family at Scrabble with zarf.
• What was once reserved for empires, diplomats, and the rich is now handed out at any corner cafe.