tl;dr: You use the CUPS app to pre-pay into a network of coffee providers at a reduced rate. The savings is highly dependent on the plan you buy, the drinks you favor, and the shops you buy from. The Cups network is not curated-- don't expect every vendor on the list to be an accomplished third-wave outpost.

I think I was perusing the /r/coffee reddit when the CUPS app first came to my attention, mentioned in one of the myriad threads that I was skimming. I went ahead and plunked it onto my iPhone but, for the longest time, it lay buried on the 999th page of my home screen with only a few plaintive reminders to tell me it was still alive. Well, sometime last week, I finally caved and gave the app a go. My experience using the it looked something like this:

Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration. Let me step back and explain how the CUPS app works.

Think of it like a transit pass but for coffee instead of subway or bus rides. You prepay for a fixed number of beverages (or for a monthly all you can drink pass) at the shops participating in the CUPS network.

Once you've purchased your plan, you walk into the shop, use the app to select and finalize your drink choice, hand your phone to the animal, vegetable, or mineral behind the counter. It punches in a code into the app, you're deducted one drink from your pass (or not if it's the unlimited), and then you get your drink. It's pretty dead simple.

Participating shops can be located from within the app, via a list, a map interface, or a search. Shops can also be favorited, which anchors them to the top of the list.

In my experience, there seemed to be a pretty good distribution of shops wherever I was so that one never seemed too far away. That said, the coverage is nowhere near all-encompassing and, at the time of this writing, most if not all the most well-known, top-end, shops are not in the network-- sorry, no Stumptown, no Blue Bottle, etc.

Another thing to keep in mind is that, as tempting as it might be to use the CUPS app as a shortcut map to coffee, doing so would be a mistake. The network is not curated for quality.

During my week with the app, I was pointed towards one place that turned out to be a Middle Eastern pita joint and another that was a diner masquerading as a coffee shop. The names and photos in the app were not giveaways here. If you didn't know before you set out, you wouldn't know before you got there.

There's plenty of good coffee within the network but it's blended with these other options to the point that, outside trial and error, or prior knowledge, it's impossible to differentiate. The result is that the usefulness of the app is a bit blunted as an all-purpose tool. It'll find you coffee but I can't promise it'll be good coffee.

Once you've found your shop, however, you're good to go, though how good depends very much on your plan, your drink, and the shop.

The CUPS website does a good job laying out the pricing:

Obviously, the best deals are the unlimited ones but they also require a sizable upfront outlay of cash. Putting those aside, the best flat rates are $2 for basic drinks and $3.40 for everything else. Is this a good deal? Probably but it's not a slam dunk and it's very dependant on what you want where you want it.

At Pushcart Coffee, a cappuccino is $3.75. Their largest latte is $4.75 and their espresso is $2.75. There's $0.35 savings on the cappuccino, $1.35 savings on the big latte, but a $0.65 loss on the straight espresso.

Drip coffee fairs better in the deal at Pushcart. Anything over a small size nets some savings: $0.50 at medium, $1.00 at large, and $1.25 at extra large. The small is a $0.15 loss.

Let's take a look at decidedly more old-wave coffee offerings at Sunburst Espresso Bar. Looking at their larger espresso-based milk drinks (capps, etc.), you save $0.10 on their large size and $0.60 on their XL. You lose $0.40 on a small. On smaller espresso-based milk drinks (macchiatos, etc.), you lose $1.15 on the single and $0.85 on the double.

At Sunburst, drip coffee is less of a win as well. You break even on the large, and save $0.50 on the XL, but lose $0.50 on the small.

For the most part, using CUPS is a win but it's not so much so that you don't have to think about it if you want to make the most of your drink plan. It's a safe bet that, the more pedestrian the coffee shop or the smaller your drink of choice, or both, the less likely you are to maximize your savings. To make the most of your CUPS, shoot high and aim large.

That said, drink enough coffee over enough time and even the smallest of savings will add up and the drink plans CUPS provides can act as a framework for establishing a coffee budget: the five cup plan, for example, resolves neatly to one drink per weekday for a week. Yes, I'm naive enough to believe anyone could get by on one drink a day. Call me Polyana.

Because you're paying in advance, you only need the app to pay for your coffee (so leave your wallet at your desk to be pilfered by your coworkers at their leisure) but you do need to input your credit card into the app to pay for your plan. It's not a big deal but I would have liked to see some options for in-app purchases (via iTunes) or Apple Pay or paypal or giant oversized checks-- anything to let me avoid having to spread my credit card information to yet another corner of the internet.

You also need to create an account or link it to something like Facebook which, depending on how you feel about opening yet another user account, or coupling yourself ever more tightly to Facebook, may be more or less abhorant to you.

CUPS bills itself as offering "prepaid coffee plans for your city's best cafes". It doesn't totally succeed, but only because, at least as far as concerns NYC (the only city I think it covers as of this writing), it neither includes the city's generally-considered best cafes nor only the best cafes. At least not yet.

However, as a simple, fairly extensive, pre-paid coffee network and, hopefully, a work in progress, it works like a charm, just do your due dilligence as to how and where to use it.

My Current CUPS Recommendations (in no discernable order)

• Pushcart Coffee
• Ground Central
• Simon Sips
• Espresso 77
• Housing Works
• Cafe Integral
• Hungry Ghost