square cups??

I've had sake out of those types of cups before and it's not quite as impractical as it seems. Fascinating little boxes, and very tightly made...
 
Japan has a very old culture Frank, and the square cup, called a "Masu" is actually a very good idea for a time long ago when they wanted to have a standardized measure for goods. If you make a square cup, that has the same inside measurements, it does not matter who makes the cup they will hold the same amount of product.

The small cups you saw are a small version of the real Masu used for measuring such things as rice, or sake. In fact the name of my liquor shop, "Masutoh" the first character in the name is that same "Masu"

Before the advent of the metric system Japan had it's own units of measure, for liquids it was based on a "Sho" which is 1.8L or just under half a US gallon. That is why Sake comes in an "I-sho-bin" (said ee-show-bin) as that means "One sho sized bottle.

masu-1-s.jpg
Back to why the square box, it standardized units of measure.
The pic above shows the sizes in centimeters the size of one sho box, notice how odd the sizes are, that is because they had a different unit of measure for length etc back then too :D

The smaller square boxes you see on TV are used for fun, hearkening back to an older time.:wave:
 
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