cup of joe

Origin: . * Possibly a shortening of "cup of jamoke", from java + mocha: this origin was given in a military officer's manual from 1931, around when the term first appeared. * Alternatively, perhaps a use of fellow, guy, signifying that coffee was the drink of the common man. * Another theory suggests that US soldiers in World War I (1914-1918) referred to a serving of instant coffee made by the G. Washington Coffee Refining Company (founded in 1910) as a "cup of George", and that the common abbreviation of the name "George" ("Geo.") was then read as "Joe". * Another theory derives the term from Jo. Origin information sourced from Wiktionary contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0).