A cup sits on a saucer. That is so obvious that the phrase cup and saucer trips naturally off the tongue without a second thought. So how can Spanish have no word for saucer?
The things exist of course but are called platillos, little plates. They have the dimple in the centre to hold a cup, and are used for serving coffee, but they are also used for serving tapas or for returning change in bars. They are usually white, though some coffee brands have their distinctive cups
This may be due to the habit of drinking coffee in very small cups unlike the British habit of dinking tea in larger cups, which lend themselves more easily to decoration.
A cup-supporting platillo is so unremarkable a thing that Spanish Wikipedia's entry for platillos is about cymbals.
In Spanish a flying saucer is sometimes a platillo volante (taken from English I am sure) but more usually an OVNI (objeto volante no identificado –unidentified flying object).
Images: Spanish cup La Tienda del Café; British cup, The Telegraph
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