Your customer finds out about a bad cup before you do.

The latte goes soft in their hand on the walk to the car. The frozen mango drink pops its lid somewhere in the delivery bag. The smoothie you spent time layering looks grey and flat through the wrong material, so nobody photographs it and nobody orders it again.

We build custom packaging for QSR and fast casual chains, along with travel and hospitality brands, which means we spend our days on the small stuff that decides whether your drink arrives the way you made it. And after enough of those conversations, one thing becomes clear. There is no best cup material. There is only the material that fits the temperature you pour at, the drink you are selling, and how far it has to travel.

Paper handles your heat. PET makes your cold drinks look good. PP takes more heat than most people expect and bends instead of cracking.

Which Cup Material Is Right for Your Drink

Pour hot drinks into paper, cold drinks into PET, and anything that needs flexibility or a sealed rim into PP.

Your paper cups are paperboard with a thin inner lining that stops liquid from soaking into the fibers. Your PET cups are stiff, glass-clear plastic built for cold service only. Your PP cups are softer and slightly cloudy, and they take far more heat than PET ever will.

Push any of them past their job, and it fails in a way you can predict. That is good news, because it means you can avoid every one of those failures at the ordering stage.

Paper Cups for Hot Coffee and Tea

Use paper for anything you pour above roughly 150 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about 65 Celsius.

Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, broth. The board holds the shape, the lining keeps the liquid where it belongs, and the whole thing insulates better than any plastic cup you can buy.

You have two builds to pick from.

1. Single Wall Paper Cups

Single wall paper cups are your lightweight everyday option. They stack tight, they cost less per case, and they work well when you hand the drink over at the counter or add a sleeve. Our single-wall hot cups use FSC-certified paperboard with a bio-based PLA lining, so they stay compostable.

2. Double Wall Paper Hot Cups

Double wall paper hot cups add a second layer of board with an air gap between the two. That gap does the insulating for you. Your customer holds the cup with no sleeve, the drink stays hot longer, and you get a smooth outer surface that prints beautifully. Chick-fil-A switched to a double-wall cup for those exact reasons, and we broke down what that change did for their customer experience.

3. Paper Cold Cups

Paper works cold too, which catches people off guard. A paper cold cup hides condensation instead of dripping down your customer's hand, so you go through fewer napkins and your drinks do not slide around in a carrier. Our paper cold cups run from 4oz up to 44oz, which covers a wellness shot and a road trip soda with the same material.

PET Cups for Iced Coffee and Cold Drinks

Go with PET when the drink itself is the marketing.

PET stands for polyethylene terephthalate. It is crystal clear, it holds a sharp shape, and it stays rigid from freezer temperatures up to around 140 degrees Fahrenheit, or 60 Celsius. That clarity is why iced coffee counters, smoothie bars, and fruit tea shops reach for it first. Your layers show. Your colors pop. Your garnish reads right through the wall.

1. How Hot Is Too Hot for a PET Cup

PET softens well below coffee temperature, so a fresh Americano in a PET cup gives you a warped rim, a lid that pops off, and a customer holding a hot mess. Keep PET on cold fills only and it will never let you down.

2. Are PET Cups Recyclable

PET has a real recycling pathway behind it, which matters more every year. The National Association for PET Container Resources found that 264 million pounds of PET thermoforms were collected for recovery across the US and Canada in 2024, up 52 percent from the year before, and thermoforms include cups, trays, and clamshells.

Worth knowing the other half of that story before you build a claim around it. Recycled content going back into new thermoforms actually dropped from 18 percent to 12 percent over the same period. Collection is running ahead of demand.

Our plastic cups come in PET and PLA, sized from 12oz to 32oz.

PP Cups for Hot Fills, Soups, and Sealed Drinks

Reach for PP when you need heat tolerance, flexibility, or a rim you can heat seal.

PP is polypropylene. It melts around 320 degrees Fahrenheit and handles liquids close to boiling without deforming, which puts it in a completely different category from PET. It is softer too. Squeeze a PP cup, and it springs back. Squeeze a PET cup hard enough, and you hear it crack.

Three places PP earns its spot on your shelf.

Sealed bubble tea and shaken drinks come first. Your film sealer presses a heated bar straight onto the rim, and PET cannot take that sustained heat. PP can, which is why nearly every sealable boba cup you have ever held is polypropylene.

Hot soups, broths, and noodle cups come next. PP takes a hot fill without warping and goes in a microwave, which no PET cup should ever do.

Sauces and condiments are where PP quietly does most of its work in foodservice. Our portion cups come in polypropylene alongside fiber, PLA, and paper, in sizes from 1oz to 6oz, and we supply PP portion cup lids that seal tight on hot or greasy fills.

What you give up with PP is looks. It never gets to PET's glass clarity and reads a little hazy. Fine for soup and sauce. Less ideal for the drink you want your customers posting.

Which Cups Work for Frozen and Blended Drinks

For frozen drinks, wall thickness and lid fit matter more than the material itself.

A blended drink is heavier and denser than iced coffee, and it gets stirred, shaken, and knocked around on the way out. A thin cup that handled lemonade all summer will flex under a thick açaí blend and lose its lid in a delivery bag.

Four things to check before you commit to an order.

Start with wall thickness, because weight is the real test here, not cold. Both PET and a well-made paper cold cup handle freezer temperatures without cracking. What fails is a thin wall under load.

Go with dome lids rather than flat ones. Whipped cream, boba pearls, fruit, and crumble toppings all need headroom, and a flat lid crushes the build you just made.

Plan for condensation, because frozen drinks sweat harder than anything else you serve. Plastic sweats visibly and gets slippery. Paper hides it and gives a drier grip, so plenty of operators run paper for frozen and plastic for iced.

Match your straw to your lid opening. Thick blends need wide straws, and a lid with a narrow slot makes that impossible. Check it before the order, not after.

For the full cost and performance picture on the cold side, we covered it in paper cold cups vs plastic cold cups.

How to Match Your Lids to Your Cups

A great cup with the wrong lid is a refund waiting to happen.

This is the mistake we see most. You spend real time choosing your cups, then buy lids on price alone. Then a driver takes a corner, and the whole order comes back.

Match your lid to your cup by rim diameter and by material, every time. Our paper cup lids include black and white double-wall hot cup lids built for insulation and a tight seal, plus PET and PS lids sized for cold paper cups. 

Our plastic cup lids come in flat, dome, cross-cut, and compostable styles across PET, PLA, and CPLA. You can see the whole lid range in one place.

Remember your lid has heat limits too. A PET lid on a hot cup is the same error as a PET cup full of coffee, just harder to spot until it fails.

PFAS Rules and Packaging Laws to Know in 2026

PFAS-free is now the practical standard for paper foodservice packaging across the US, whether or not your state has passed its own law.

The FDA confirmed in February 2024 that grease-proofing materials containing PFAS are no longer sold for food packaging use in the US market, closing out a voluntary phase-out that began in 2020. 

The agency then ruled that 35 related food contact notifications were no longer effective as of January 2025, with a June 2025 compliance date for stock already in the system.

States kept moving too. As of April 2026, twelve of them restrict intentionally added PFAS in food packaging or foodservice ware, including California, New York, Washington, Minnesota, Maryland, and Maine. The scope varies by material and use, so the simplest position for you is a blanket PFAS-free spec across every supplier you buy from.

New York widened its polystyrene foam ban on January 1, 2026, to include cold storage containers like coolers and ice chests, on top of the existing ban on foam cups, dishes, and trays. 

If you operate across state lines, Packaging Dive keeps a useful list of the packaging laws taking effect in 2026.

Get the Right Cups for Your Menu

Tell us what is on your menu, and we will match the cup, the lid, and the size to it. Browse the full cups collection, take a look at our best sellers, or get in touch for a quote built around your volumes and your drinks. Custom fit, custom built, custom branded, delivered on time. Contact us at hello@supplycaddy.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you put hot coffee in a PET cup?

No. PET starts softening around 140 degrees Fahrenheit, well below brewed coffee, so the cup can warp, break its lid seal, and leak. Use a paper hot cup instead.

What is the difference between PET and PP cups?

PET is clear, rigid, and for cold fills only. PP is slightly hazy, flexible, and handles liquids close to boiling. Pick PET when you want your cold drink on display, and PP when you need heat, flex, or a heat-sealed rim like bubble tea.

Which cup is best for frozen and blended drinks?

Either PET or a sturdy paper cold cup, paired with a dome lid so your toppings have headroom. Wall thickness and lid fit decide this one, because frozen drinks are heavier and stress the cup more than iced drinks do.

Are paper cups better for the environment than plastic cups?

It depends on what your area actually processes. PLA-lined paper cups are compostable where industrial composting exists. PET is recyclable, and thermoform collection hit a record 264 million pounds across the US and Canada in 2024, though recycled content in new thermoforms fell that same year. Check your local infrastructure before you make either claim.

Do I need double wall hot cups or will single wall do?

Single wall works if you hand out sleeves or serve at the counter. Double wall is worth it for takeaway and delivery, since the air gap insulates without a sleeve, holds heat longer, and gives you a better print surface.

Are your cups PFAS free?

Yes. PFAS-free is the standard across US paper foodservice packaging after the FDA phase-out wrapped up in 2024, and twelve states restrict intentionally added PFAS in food packaging as of April 2026. Ask us for documentation on any product, and we will send it over.

What size cups should a coffee shop stock?

Most cafes run 8oz, 12oz, and 16oz for hot drinks, then add 20oz or 24oz for iced. Our paper cups go from 4oz to 44oz and our plastic cups from 12oz to 32oz, so you can cover espresso through large cold brew without piling on SKUs.

Can PP cups go in the microwave?

Yes. PP handles hot fills and microwave use, which is why it shows up in soups, noodle cups, and sauces. PET should never go in a microwave.