Introduction: How to Drink Your Coffee "Trucker-Style"

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No, we don't mean how to drink your coffee with one hand while yakkin' into your CB with the other; This is a brilliant way to set up your to-go paper coffee cup to reduce the likelihood of a spill. This was shown to me by a trucker in a Tim Hortons in Hamilton, ON. For those of you unfamiliar with Hamilton, it has the highest density of donut/coffee shops in the entire world... These folks KNOW how to drink their coffee!

Step 1: Identify the Parts of the Cup

Ok, in order to drink your coffee trucker-style, you need a cup that has a pull-up tab in the lid. Cups that just have a small opening (like a Starbucks cup) won't work for this, but that's ok. How many truckers do you see ordering a grande-non-fat-with-whip-yadda-yadda at the local coffee bar? None! That's right, bars are for beer and stronger things, coffee comes from a coffee shop!

My examples use a Tim Hortons cup (for some reason they have dropped the apostrophe...), but I have used this technique on many other brands of coffee cup. The pull-up tab is that thing in the lid that you normally pull up, bend back and then snap onto a little ridge in the middle of the lid. You can see how it is normally used the third photo.

We're going to use this tab to create a spill baffle so that bumps on the road (or walking, etc) are less likely to cause a spill.

Step 2: Pull Up the Tab!

Kind of self explanatory, pull up the tab (don't tear it off or push it back like you normally might)!

Step 3: A Little Cup-a-gami

Ok, instead of pulling the tab and bending it back, push it down into the cup. This is easiest to do if you use one hand to lift off the front of the cup, and your other to push the tab into the cup. You don't want to flex the tab too much, because you want to have it's springiness hold it against the front of the cup.

Step 4: Time to Enjoy Your Coffee, Trucker-style!

Now replace the lid and you're ready to go! When you take a sip, the coffee flows around the sides of the tab, but most spills are blocked by the tab.

Once you've done this a couple of times, you'll be able to do the cup-a-gami step in one smooth motion. People in line will look on in awe at your mad-coffee skillz!