Other than spinning the top and side of a cylinder with its bottom stationary, is there a better way to model the teacup effect in Fluent? Any suggestion is appreciated.

Have you gone through tutorial no 16 in Fluent tutorial guide.

I had gone over most tutorials on Fluent 6.3. The VOF tutorial of spinning bowl that you have suggested was taken away in Fluent 6.3. I have to look for them in the older version of Fluent. Thanks for the tips though.

However, I think that the spinning bowl and the original teacup effect is a bit different from aspect of source of momentum, isn't it? In a spinning bowl, fluid is being rotated by the wall, hence the fluid near the wall should have a small velocity as the wall. On the other hand, the tea-cup effect is due to the sinking of tea leaves and causing the fluid to spin. The velocity on the wall should be zero (on a no-slip wall, that is).