During the trial it was revealed that McDonald’s knew that heating their coffee to this temperature would be dangerous, but they did it anyways because it would save them money. When you serve coffee that is too hot to drink, it will take much longer for a person to drink their coffee, which means that McDonald’s will not have to give out as many free refills of coffee. This policy by the fast food chain is the reason the jury awarded $2.7 million dollars in punitive damages in the McDonald's hot coffee case. Punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant for their inappropriate business practice.
ObviouslyNotBanana 119 points 3 years ago path: 0 3611210 3611313, hotness: undefined, score: 119, children: 34
SSX 54 points 3 years ago
This is ultimately why I hate capitalism.
These corporations spend tons more money fighting against stuff than they do paying it out. The woman wanted her hospital bills paid, that was it. Instead, they go to town spending so much money with the intent to misinform and spread propaganda than just paying it.
Many of these large employers do the same with unemployment cases and on-site work injuries. Spending more time and money doing fuck all than just paying it out like the greedy pigs they are.
Quacksalber 3 points 3 years ago
This has little to do with capitalism, capitalism doesn't dictate that the more powerful smear the weaker into submission and autocracies around the world show that it doesn't need capitalism for the powerful to suppress the weak. This was a failure of the justice system. They could've ordered McDonalds to spend as much money as they spent on smearing the lady to fully admit guilt and apologize. It is the justice system that failed.
Pregnenolone 22 points 3 years ago
It’s literally capitalism. It’s not “smearing the weak”, it’s a company spending money to potentially save money later, regardless of the consequence to anyone else. That’s the point.
Edit: lol I got blocked. Weak as piss.
Viking_Hippie 12 points 3 years ago
It might not be a DIRECT result of capitalism, but guess what screwed up the "justice" system? Underregulated capitalism!
It's specifically designed to work for the rich and powerful and against everyone else, because that's who make the laws and keep the lawmakers in somehow legal bribes.
Huxleywaswrite 4 points 3 years ago
It has everything to do with capitalism
vacuumflower 1 point 3 years ago
Thank you for having a brain in this thread.
Only it's the mass media system that failed rather. Which works in the way allowing to spend money on forming opinions with predictable outcomes. Which enables much worse things than dangerous customer service.
fubo -1 points 3 years ago
A lot of people around here say "capitalism" when they mean something more like "the Kali Yūga", "this fallen world, this vale of tears", "the age in which the Tao is lost", or "this age of muck and clay, in which we are lesser than our fathers of iron, who were lesser than their grandfathers of silver, who were lesser still than the ancients of gold."
The folks who speak this way, if you asked them, "Was there any wrongdoing in the world before the first stock certificate was issued?", would say "Of course there was!"
If you asked them, "Did pre-capitalist kings or judges ever favor the unjust over the just because the unjust gave them riches?", they would say "Yes, they did!"
If you asked them, "In ancient times, were there rich and well-fed tribes, and poor and starveling tribes, and did the richer tribes lord over the poorer ones?", they would say "Certainly."
Which all goes to show, at some level they do know they're not really talking about "capitalism" in the economic or historical sense. They're not talking about an economic structure or a stage of Marxist history. They're taking about wickedness, graft, injustice, abuse of power -- things which are much, much older than capitalism.
They're merely using their favorite snarl word instead of just saying "evil".
Cavemanfreak 26 points 3 years ago
And she only wanted to be reimbursed for the hospital bills...
I_Fart_Glitter 20 points 3 years ago
My mom broke her tooth on a small stone in some cereal while all that was swirling around the collective consciousness. She wouldn't sue because she "didn't want to be like the McDonald's lady." The dentist wasn't even suggesting to sue for some kind of "pain and suffering" money, just literally the $1500 it cost to fix the tooth.
ObviouslyNotBanana 1 point 3 years ago path: 0 3611210 3611313 3618306 3618830, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
JoeClu 66 points 3 years ago
It's pretty scary how media can influence us so much, even when we think they aren't, and even when we think "only dumb people fall for it." No my friend, the majority fall for it. Not cause they're dumb, but because they've scienced the hell out of human nature and know precisely how to do it right under our noses. It started with marketing and advertising that works well, unfortunately. They've cracked the psyche code. Media adopted it. Big tech improved it. Gah... this is turning into a rant about capitalism; I didn't intend to go there. Eek.
vjxtdibobyd 3 points 3 years ago
Manufacturing consent is a good book on this topic.
BearOfaTime 1 point 3 years ago
We ALL fall for it, just not all the same things at the same time.
That's what's so insidious. I'm sat here thinking "you rubes, I read into the details right away, and knew something was off about the story". So then I have to ask myself, "ok, smartass, what are you falling for that you think you know".
Its just so damn insidious.
FlyingSquid 27 points 3 years ago
I'm just glad for her that almost no one knows her name. Can you imagine the doxxing and death threats she would be getting if this happened today?
TheBaldFox 13 points 3 years ago
Corporations gonna corporate
MeatsOfRage 120 points 3 years ago
Her lawsuit was just to help cover the medical expenses. McDonald's didn't want a precedence of being sued so their PR cooked up a narrative of greedy frivolous lawsuits and America bought this story hook line and sinker.
Quill7513 17 points 3 years ago
She even started out planning to accept the $800 oopsie poopsie money McDonald's offered her until her family was like "um. No? You've gone from independent living senior to permanently disabled. You deserve for them to pay the full medical bills"
brygphilomena 71 points 3 years ago
It fused her labia together. The coffee was so hot and the burns were so bad that her labia fused together.
jarfil 4 points 3 years ago
There is an additional step:
- Serve it in a disposable container that doesn't soak up any of the heat.
Pouring hot coffee into a thick cold porcelain cup, tends to quickly cool it down to drinkable levels. A flimsy paper cup... not so much.
Stumblinbear -5 points 3 years ago
Humans being fragile creatures is how
slumlordthanatos 28 points 3 years ago
They had a slush fund set up specifically to pay out settlements for coffee burns.
They knew it was a problem, but decided it would be cheaper to pay off burn victims than to serve their coffee at a safe temperature.
ohlaph 151 points 3 years ago
When you dive into that case, you definitely side with the lady. She had some pretty serious burns, like way beyond what most of us would get if we spilled coffee that we made at the house.
If my memory serves me well, she originally only asked them to cover the medical expenses. So their greed ended up costing them far more.
SacrificedBeans 21 points 3 years ago
Oh.. I can't unread that...
assassin_aragorn 6 points 3 years ago
Well then. TIL that third degree burns can fucking fuse your body parts together. Jesus Christ
OrteilGenou 73 points 3 years ago
The picture of that poor woman's thighs is all you need to see to know this was not a frivolous suit
BearOfaTime 11 points 3 years ago
Also, McD's had years of complaints from their own store managers that the coffee was too damn hot.
vivadanang 38 points 3 years ago
I just wish the victims lawyers had responded to those claims with the pictures of that poor woman's third degree burns. she suffered horrifically and for years.
HawlSera 3 points 3 years ago
Fortunately we have actually come aways since then, if a company tried that kind of stunt today, Not only would they be called out for it online, but they would also likely catch a second lawsuit for defamation.
vivadanang 3 points 3 years ago
hopefully, she deserved so much better.
Karyoplasma 16 points 3 years ago
And media did a bang-up job portraying the victim as a petulant child who is too dumb to drink coffee. Classic corporate Uno reverse card.
VinnieFarsheds 8 points 3 years ago
I thought this was indeed one of those ridiculous American lawsuits. Until I heard of the injuries later. No I would never wish this settlement money for myself if it included those injuries on that part of my body. Justice was served to the McD.
Karyoplasma 2 points 3 years ago
It's more the fact that McD was aware that their coffee strategy was a ticking time bomb due to many complaints from staff and customers, but they didn't fix it.
IIRC the reason they heated the coffee that much in the first place was that it prolonged the time the coffee tasted fresh, so they didn't have to make a fresh batch as often. Aka more profit.
HawlSera 4 points 3 years ago
The good news is the only way they're able to get away with it was because the internet hadn't caught on as much, and because this was before the media was afraid of catching defamation lawsuits.
Whorehoarder 128 points 3 years ago
Must be one of the more successful smear campaigns in recent history. I'm not even from the us and we heard about that shit and used it as an example of greed and frivolous lawsuits. It was only like 5 years back I learned the truth. Believed that shit for 25 years..
Edit: oops should've responded to the media part of thread
Angry_Maple 50 points 3 years ago
Poor lady. Her labia was physically fused together from the heat, but she was still called dramatic. I can't imagine everything that she had to go through.
SoBoredAtWork 10 points 3 years ago
Do you really think she just sat there and willingly watched her vagina boil?
Also, she was wearing jeans, so you're just making shit up.
And have you seen pictures? They're horrendous. I'll assume you have already, since you're an expert on this incident, but in case you haven't, here you go (very NSFW)...
theangryseal 6 points 3 years ago
The woman was 79 years old. Getting the pants on before her labia was fused together by intentionally overheated coffee was probably a fucking chore.
JackbyDev 2 points 3 years ago
Listen, do this as a test, pour water a cup of water on your pants. See if your legs get wet. Better yet, heat it up or chill it (not enough to hurt yourself) and see how cold or warm your legs feel.
jenniebuckley 106 points 3 years ago
but yet people will still dismiss it as a stupid lawsuit by some greedy woman. gotta protect those big corps
leprasmurf 62 points 3 years ago
Thanks to the successful smear campaign executed by the corporate lawyers.
TheSaneWriter 18 points 3 years ago
This smear campaign is clear and obvious defamation. Someone should get in trouble for this, but unfortunately no one will.
Duamerthrax 7 points 3 years ago
I wonder how much Jerry Seinfeld got.
CosmicCleric 1 point 3 years ago
but yet people will still dismiss it as a stupid lawsuit by some greedy woman. gotta protect those big corps
People, or "people"?
Redirecting the narrative away from your faults helps protect your profits.
jenniebuckley 2 points 3 years ago
both. the corporation for starting a smear campaign and the public for buying into it and not doing their own research
JackbyDev 27 points 3 years ago
She didn't seek out that much money. She only wanted money to cover her medical costs. If you feel upset about the amount then you should blame the jury. They're the ones who came up with the amount. (Which the judge lowered.)
bemenaker 5 points 3 years ago
Serving as hot as they did. Try reading the legal case. It is common everywhere for there to be a maximum temp you are allowed to serve hot drinks at for this reason. The store was cited multiple times for serving over that limit.
assassin_aragorn 4 points 3 years ago
I've spilled freshly brewed coffee at home on myself, and I just needed to run my hand under the faucet for a bit and then clean up the mess.
This woman needed skin grafts from third degree burns. Saying the coffee was too hot is an absolute understatement.
Saltblue 3 points 3 years ago
The other day I put my coffee(that I just made) in the fridge door and without thinking proceed to bend and try and grab the milk in the fridge's door bottom, well I spilled that shit in my ear, neck and cheek, screamed like a motherfucker and ran to the shower.
The area was red for a day or two and I used aloe vera, that Mctrash coffee was dangerous hot.
BearOfaTime 2 points 3 years ago
Except for the YEARS of McD's own managers complaining about the excessive temp and requesting to reduce it.
It caused third degree burns. I've spilt half a pot of fresh food-service coffee on my arm and had both first and second-degree burns, but not third. You know, because food-service coffee makers all heat to the same temp, except for McD's, which has their's set much higher. (Go research why McD's milkshake machines are always down, despite being the same machines everyone else uses).
Having worked in many restaurants and some fast-food joints, they're all the same, and don't seem to have the supposed problem you claim.
FlyingSquid 2 points 3 years ago
It was so hot it fused her labia together. Do you really think most places make coffee that hot?
ultratiem 74 points 3 years ago
Oh man there is so much to this case. First, she asked for like $40k, enough to cover the cost of the medical bills. To be clear, she received extensive burns as the coffee was so hot that it would burn in seconds (the wiki had a breakdown of the times/temps and they were illuminating). Moreover, it wasn’t even the hottest coffee available. Starbucks was serving much hotter coffee at the time (the hottest I think recorded). In the end, she got paid, but McDs never cooled their coffee (nor did anyone else), all they did was make better lids lol.
maniajack 22 points 3 years ago
AND she was in a car with no cup holders. It wasn't a standard feature in sports cars in the 90s. She had borrowed it from her son.
https://www.capitalone.com/...
And you're right that it didn't change coffee temps that much:
“During the Liebeck court proceedings, McDonald’s said it served its coffee between 180 and 190 degrees,” according to The New York Times. “The company has refused to disclose today’s standard temperature, but Retro Report shows a handbook for franchisees calling for temperatures 10 degrees lower.”
If it doesn’t sound like much, it’s because it’s not. McDonald’s chooses to keep their coffee scaldingly hot because, according to attorney Butch Wagner, hot coffee stays fresh for longer. They save money by doing this (millions per day, in fact, across their US franchises alone), even if it means paying out for other hot coffee settlements—of which there are plenty.
bane_killgrind 4 points 3 years ago
Yeah but then you buy a second cup
dannoffs 2 points 3 years ago
What? Caffeine doesn't break down until like 450°F. Keeping coffee hot is absolutely the best way to keep it "fresh". Adding external heat does usually cause off flavors but has absolutely no effect on caffeine content.
Cabrio 61 points 3 years ago
No pictures? Disappointed, McDonalds spent millions trying to scrub them from the Internet.
superseven 22 points 3 years ago
I have to admit that i didn't expect that not boiling water could do so much damage.
JustZ 25 points 3 years ago
She was wearing jeans. The superheated water absorbed into the fabric, and held it right against her skin. Part of the case was that McDonald's knew it was handing these cups of near-boiling water down, into vehicles, in which people were restrained. It made their conduct more negligent.
I had a soda spill on me once at a drivethrough. Everyone in the drive through business surely knows that things spill, down, onto customers.
candyman337 -3 points 3 years ago path: 0 3613910 3618295 3620236, hotness: undefined, score: -3, children: 4
Stumblinbear 2 points 3 years ago
212° is the boiling point of water
Ilovemyirishtemper 1 point 3 years ago
212 is the boiling point. Either way, that's going to cause some nasty burns.
DokuSouSei 19 points 3 years ago
FYI I Can't see it because it's blurred and I don't have an account.
Cabrio 21 points 3 years ago
path: 0 3613910 3615023 3615116, hotness: undefined, score: 21, children: 0
reverendsteveii 52 points 3 years ago
People love narratives that are simple and have an easy to understand moral to them even if they're absolutely wrong. In this case, the narrative is that she asked for hot coffee and got hot coffee, and the moral is that people are greedy and stupid and you have to protect yourself from them. I've often found that one well-constructed point can blow these narratives up though. I was talking with my dad about this particular case, he's a big "gotta do something about these frivolous lawsuits" guy because he used to own a business that was adjacent to real estate and real estate is probably the most litigated business in America. I'm a big "frivolous lawsuits is a term exploitative industries use to get people excited to give up their rights" guy, so we were at loggerheads about this one. Eventually I was like "Have you ever spilled coffee? When you did, who paid for your skin grafts?" Turns out that when crafting their narrative about how she was "suing them for giving her what she asked for", the industry lobby left out the part where she had to spend 8 days in the hospital and have multiple reconstructive surgeries.
Moobythegoldensock 39 points 3 years ago
And she only asked McDonalds to cover her medical bills. It was the jury who threw out her request and instead punished McDonalds with the huge settlement, because they were horrified by how grossly negligent the company had been and decided her request wasn’t a strong enough punishment.
funkless_eck 24 points 3 years ago
the same goes for the Dingos Ate My Baby woman
dingos did eat her baby.
Kethal 11 points 3 years ago
They also left out the fact that this was not the first injury nor the first complaint and that McDonald's knew their coffee was inappropriately hot. The majority of damages weren't to because of medical costs, but we're punative as punishment for knowingly serving a dangerous product. It was intended to make them change their practices. That didn't happen though. McDonald's had the amount reduced in appeals and continues to serve coffee that is hotter than almost anyone wants.
HawlSera -2 points 3 years ago
The fact that someone actually was dumb enough to sue over coffee being hot was a punchline in the 90s and 2000s. It's amazing what kind of misinformation can run amok in a world where you don't have easy access to the internet and whatever corporate wants the spin to be, that's what every Outlet is going to tell you.
Thankfully proper research has revealed that news groups were strong armed by McDonald's into leaving important details out to save their stock prices... and this version of the story is the one that's catching on.
I certainly hope that a better research clears up other misunderstandings ( the amount of people who actually believe Mother Teresa was a sadistic serial killer thanks to Christopher Hitchens riding the New Atheist wave of the early 2000's with his easily debunked Hell's Angel book is.. way too high. The book claims among other things that she ran sham hospitals when in fact she ran hospices long before the concept was a thing in mainstream medicine and is credited for pioneering the concept of palliative care.)
reverendsteveii 1 point 3 years ago
Why is she in quotes?
reverendsteveii 1 point 3 years ago
because I'd "like" to "know". Some people use them to communicate dubiousness, some people use them to indicate they're actually quoting someone, some "people" use them for emphasis.
CosmicCleric 1 point 3 years ago
You /s but someone in this very same conversation posted a comment above basically saying the same thing.
BearOfaTime 3 points 3 years ago
I once worked in a chain and spilled fresh brewed coffee on my arm. Looks half a pot. Got second degree burns.
Company paid for my ER visit, naturally. No way in hell was our coffee as hot as McD's, by a long shot. And I we still in pain for weeks.
yads 41 points 3 years ago
Didn't realize the reason was this petty. I always thought it had something to do with how many beans it took, or the time or something like that. Not that it just took longer for a customer to drink Beca they'd be burning their mouth. I'm glad she got what was owed to her. Poor woman.
Lemmy_at_it 14 points 3 years ago
I remember hearing that it was based on market research that a significsnt number of people would pick up coffee on their way to work/home, and drink it once they got there. So they superheated the coffee so that it would be at its ideal taste/temperature when they got to their destination.
But the refill thing sounds much more likely
slumlordthanatos 16 points 3 years ago
They serve it that hot so that it's less obvious when the coffee isn't fresh. That way, you can save money by making fewer batches, and the people who are served old coffee won't realize it until long after they left the drive-thru.
aelwero 9 points 3 years ago
They fuck you at the drive-thru, okay? They fuck you at the drive-thru! They know you're gonna be miles away before you find out you got fucked! They know you're not gonna turn around and go back, they don't care. So who gets fucked? Ol' Leo Getz! Okay, sure!
drekly 31 points 3 years ago
EVERY coffee shop overheats the drinks in the UK and it's infuriating. Every chain coffee just tastes like scorched milk and burnt beans and you can't drink it for 30 mins.
I'm unsure whether, unlike this case, they serve it hot enough that if you spill it, your labia fuses together from the heat of the burns. Horrifying.
Mdotaut801 1 point 3 years ago path: 0 3614547 3615204 3618802, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
solstice 6 points 3 years ago
I switched to iced coffee years ago for precisely this reason and never looked back. I'd rather have watered down coffee than sit there for half an hour waiting for it to cool. I have an ice tray for big cubes that don't melt as fast, so I freeze coffee in them. That way I don't water down my coffee at home and it's perfect.
vacuumflower 3 points 3 years ago
Interesting, actually, in Russia I've never had that particular problem.
Maybe there actually is some regulation in place, makes me wonder.
reverendsteveii 2 points 3 years ago
Are they wrong to do this? I believe so, and I can't comment on UK law but US law agrees with me. But can I tell you why they do this? 18 years in foodservice and one of my most common complaints was coffee or tea that isn't hot enough. Sometimes it was that I poured a cup and then had to go do something else before I dropped it off, but a lot of times it was just done brewing and I had walked the pot straight to the table only for someone to send it back and tell me to microwave it until it boiled.
woodenskewer 2 points 3 years ago
Ask for less ice, or even better than that, make coffee at home.
tdawg 21 points 3 years ago
Fun fact. The guy who served her the cup of coffee is related to the owner of a Panera franchise that I use to work for. Both him and his brother-in-law (I think that's how they were related) would talk about how that was their claim to fame back when they we're franchising with McDonalds
Colorcodedresistor 17 points 3 years ago path: 0 3673844, hotness: undefined, score: 17, children: 5
FleetingTit 2 points 3 years ago
180°(C)?!? Did they keep the coffee from flashing to steam instantly?
Colorcodedresistor 0 points 3 years ago path: 0 3673844 3677928 3688413, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
justawittyusername 15 points 3 years ago
That must have been not far off boiling!
slumlordthanatos 14 points 3 years ago
190 degrees Fahrenheit. They served it that hot to make it less obvious that they (usually) weren't selling fresh coffee.
Silverseren 8 points 3 years ago
Only a couple degrees off, yeah. The elderly woman who spilled it ended up getting third degree burns across her entire lower torso and had to have multiple skin grafts done.
FaeDrifter 10 points 3 years ago
During the trial it was revealed that McDonald’s knew that heating their coffee to this temperature would be dangerous, but they did it anyways because it would save them money.
People aren't understanding the coffee science here. Optimal brew temp is 195-205 degF.
https://static1.squarespace.com/...
Now it should be regulated that the coffee is required to cool to a certain temperature, probably 160, before they're allowed to serve it. But coffee is supposed to be brewed at a dangerous temperature.
jarfil 1 point 3 years ago
Businesses are not allowed to sell "dangerous by default" products to their customers without a clear warning and sometimes even a signed waiver.
Stuff like "don't put cat in microwave", and similar.
sebinspace 16 points 3 years ago
82-88 *C, according to the Wikipedia page for the Liebeck vs McDonald’s case. McDonalds also serve their hot coffee in paper cups. I’m not a materials expert, but I have to think paper wouldn’t dissipate that heat as quickly as ceramic.
ChickenLadyLovesLife 1 point 3 years ago path: 0 3612525 3612964 3617338, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
EmperorHenry 1 point 3 years ago path: 0 3675013 3692775 3702001, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
ihavenopeopleskills -3 points 3 years ago
It's my native tongue and I admit it has hardly a shred of orthagonality.
Declamatie 6 points 3 years ago
Or they could just charge per cup
aulin 5 points 3 years ago
I still have trouble understanding this. The last time I saw this discussed, someone said they super heated the coffee, but this articke says it was 180-190 °F, which is still quite a ways below what it would be when you make it (92-96 °C = 197-205 °F). Would coffee normally lose a lot of heat when being poured and this was somehow poured differently so that didn't happen? Because when I make coffee and it's near boiling, I pour it and drink it almost immediately.
jarfil 25 points 3 years ago
You likely make coffee by boiling some water... then let it fall into a cold container that soaks up much of the heat, and maybe even pour it into another cold container afterwards, which is where you drink it from.
They brew the coffee the same, but then keep it in a heated container, and pour it into another disposable container (paper cup, styrofoam) that doesn't soak out barely any of the heat.
oldmate 2 points 3 years ago
then let it fall into a cold container that soaks up much of the heat, and maybe even pour it into another cold container afterwards, which is where you drink it from.
If you're serious about making coffee then you're preheating everything that the coffee will contact.
creditCrazy 5 points 3 years ago
My rule of thumb is if it's hot enough to make utensils burn you imagine what that drink is doing to your insides
crispy_kilt 6 points 3 years ago
It's an USA thing
drbluefall 1 point 3 years ago
Well we like to enjoy our coffee state-side.
crispy_kilt 1 point 3 years ago
We call it Abwaschwasser, water leftover after doing the dishes.
Fondots 7 points 3 years ago
A lot of the world drinks a lot of espresso or at least French press, while most of what we drink in the US is drip coffee which is weaker. And when we do go for espresso drinks, a lot of us tend to favor ones that are fairly diluted (often with sugary flavored syrups and such which it's own kind of American insanity I suppose)
Overall we do drink a lot of coffee, but it's a bit less insane when you account for that.
Personally, and I'm not sure how this stacks up against my countrymen, but I take a 20oz (a bit less than 600ml) thermos of coffee to work with me most days and drink it throughout the morning until lunch time. Caffeine wise, that's maybe a bit more than having 2 double shots of espresso, which doesn't strike me as too insane, though again I'm coming from a very American perspective.
Rinox 4 points 3 years ago
There's actually a lot more caffeine than you probably think, and quite a bit more than two double espressos.
Still, two double espressos is still quite a bit, I think here in Italy the average is around 2 normal espressos in the morning, which would be equal to one double. Four to five espressos in a day is considered the limit to what you should drink, more than that it's a bit much.
Also all the sugar and syrups you pour in can't be healthy.
Virkkunen 3 points 3 years ago
I mean, in Brazil drip/filter coffee is the most common way of drinking it and still nobody drinks in a day as much as an american drinks in a single serving. The only reasoning I can see is if american coffee is really watery and there's barely any caffeine in there.
feedum_sneedson 2 points 3 years ago
I think drip is stronger, per bean if you know what I mean.
siipale 1 point 3 years ago
Finland is similar to US in that we have high coffee consumption and we like our drip coffee. I usually have two to three mugs (400 – 600 ml) of coffee throughout the day but I would imagine others might drink more than that. I don't need that much in the morning. One time I had so good cortado (not sure if it was single or double shot) at a café that I had to order another one.
crispy_kilt 3 points 3 years ago
I.. this... what? Butter dispensers? No wonder many of them are morbidly obese
BruceTwarzen 7 points 3 years ago
Don't worry, it's not real butter, it's just cheap, coloured trans fats.
crispy_kilt 2 points 3 years ago
That's because US coffee is made like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tiFDTsblltU
assassin_aragorn 1 point 3 years ago
Tolerance can vary a lot. I used to be able to do 3 cups a day easy. Then I started taking ADHD medication and the process of finding the right medicine and dosage made me pretty much cut out all caffeine for a while. Now my tolerance is barely 2 cups a day, and if I don't want to be jittery, it's 1 cup of coffee and 1 cup of black tea.
On the flipside, I've known people who drank 8 cups a day.
ihavenopeopleskills -1 points 3 years ago
Shocker of the century.
I respond by asking them for a cup of ice with it. Asking for ice in it leaves too many of them confused.
SpaceCowboy -11 points 3 years ago
This thing has been going around a long time. McDonald's is bad and people will believe anything anyone makes up about the case. People on the internet tend to be contrarian, so they jump on the chance to say "well actually the women that sued McDonald's was in the right, I know this because I'm much smarter than anyone that thinks otherwise!"
The flaw with this meme is making coffee involves boiling water. You can't actually heat water above 100C without it turning to steam. The coffee served to the woman was significantly less than the boiling point of water, because McDonald's isn't able to change physics. The injuries the woman were horrific, but anyone would suffer even worse injuries if the spilled water on themselves while making a pot of Mac & Cheese. Like anything that involves boiling water to make there's an expectation that you need to be careful when handling it.
The reality of the story is the lady that got burned admitted it was her fault. The reason she sued was to pay her medical bills. The real issue is lack of healthcare. Handling boiling water is a common thing, an accident can happen to anyone. Having a system that depends on either having a corporation associated with the accident you can sue or face bankruptcy whenever you have an accident is the real stupidity here.
I mean who would you sue if you tripped while carrying a pot of Mac & Cheese and got burned because of it? The Kraft Corporation maybe? Dumb system that brainwashed people into trying to blame accidents on a nearby corporation instead of fixing the real problem.
CosmicCleric 9 points 3 years ago
The reality of the story is the lady that got burned admitted it was her fault.
The bottom line though is that McDonalds sold/served it at an unsafe temperature (for the type of container it was put in), to make more money, making it an unsafe product to sell, which companies are not allowed to do.
SpaceCowboy -8 points 3 years ago
The bottom bottom line is lawyers want to keep up the narrative that it's good and proper to sue over hot coffee. Check the source of the link.
CosmicCleric 1 point 3 years ago
The reality of the story is the lady that got burned admitted it was her fault.
The bottom line though is that McDonalds sold/served it at an unsafe temperature (for the type of container it was put in), to make more money, making it an unsafe product to sell, which companies are not allowed to do.
The bottom bottom line is lawyers want to keep up the narrative that it’s good and proper to sue over hot coffee. Check the source of the link.
You completely ignored my point about safety, you're not being intellectually honest, and arguing for arguing sake.
damniticant 9 points 3 years ago
Dude her labia fused to her leg. I think that coffee might have been just a bit too hot.
SpaceCowboy -7 points 3 years ago
Yes yes, the emotion of it all. Let's bring it back to logic. You would suffer more injury if you spilled a pot of Mac & Cheese over your groin. Injuries be nasty, boiling water be dangerous, these are just facts of science.
Unless your mom cooks all your food for you, then you are at risk of similar injuries nearly every day. Most of us have learned the importance of being careful around the dangerous things we encounter every day to avoid these nasty injuries.
B1ackmsth 6 points 3 years ago
It wasn't a pot of boiling water, it was a cup of coffee. Which is expected to be at a temperature that is drinkable when you get it and if spilling it on yourself is dangerous then that's a problem.
IggythePyro 2 points 3 years ago
Cool! So if you go to a restaurant, order mac and cheese, get it in a cardboard container and when it spills you get hospitalized for a week, do you say "mac and cheese is meant to be served very hot! Of course I'll cover the medical bill myself!". What about when a few dozen people run into the same issue, because the restaurant has figured out that the occasional lawsuit from people being badly injured is cheaper than the cost of keeping the mac and cheese at an edible temperature? I mean, consider the comparison you're going for here. "If she'd heated a substance to that temperature herself, then spilled it on herself, it would be entirely her own fault! Why is it when someone else heats a substance to an unsafe temperature, then someone gets injured by it, it's not entirely on the injured party? They should know that the substance was heated far beyond what anyone would reasonably expect it to be provided at!"
SpaceCowboy 1 point 3 years ago
The coffee was spilled on the lady by a McDonald's employee, she spilled it on herself.
And yeah that's how it works. If I sell you a knife and you accidentally cut your finger off then that's on you. If when you buy a knife I throw it at you and you get injured as a result, that's on me. This is very basic logic of how responsibility works.
Crazypartypony 1 point 3 years ago
Except the temp they were serving at was above regulations. They had been warned multiple times and got multiple complaints. Those regulations exist for a reason, this case demonstrates why. Because people don't deserve to have their labia fused together because a coffee spilled in the drive thru.
oldmate 1 point 3 years ago
They literally haven't changed the temp they serve it at:
SpaceCowboy 1 point 3 years ago
I just did a test (for science!) I measured the temperature of instant coffee that I made. Black (just coffee and water) 88C. With sugar, 80C. After I added cream it was 68C.
All of these temperatures are about what you claim to be "above regulation" (please cite this regulation, I suspect you're just making things up). Millions of people drink instant coffee every day. The temperature being between 80C and 88C is considered normal because it is. When people say "it's coffee, it's supposed to hot!" this is what they mean, because people drink coffee at these kinds of temperature everyday.
Now you can go ahead and peer review my experiment, you just need instant coffee, a kettle and a thermometer. Please report back the temperatures you find.
assassin_aragorn 1 point 3 years ago
How likely are you to spill a high volume of Mac n Cheese on yourself in the kitchen, to the point that it soaks through your clothes, versus spilling an open cup of coffee in a car?
We do encounter dangerous things everyday, and this scenario is more dangerous than what's acceptable at industrial plants. You would be required to put in several safeguards which each reduced the chance of the event occuring by a factor of 10.
As a process engineer it's absolutely insane to me how risky this was. I believe something causing permanent injury/disability to a member of the public would actually be our highest or second highest severity category. With how likely this is to happen, if a company had inadequate safeguards in place, they would be heavily fined and I don't even know what else. This is a flagrant safety violation from a process engineering perspective.
SpaceCowboy 1 point 3 years ago
As someone who made coffee that was 88C (I measured it) this morning and every other morning. It's ridiculous to me that people are shocked that coffee is hot.
Stick a thermometer into a cup of coffee, see what temperature it is. Now work on some insane safeguards for it. Or just do what everyone else on the planet does and accept that it's hot, so be careful with it.
triclops6 7 points 3 years ago
Except that coffee doesn't need to be brewed at the literal boiling point of water, so you're wrong there.
Also the lawsuit demonstrated that even 82-88c (as the manual described) was negligently high, and that 60c was plenty hot enough and in fact what most establishments served coffee at
In fact human cells denature at about 60c so any hotter causes damage to your body.
The trial was never anchored around 100c at all
SpaceCowboy -5 points 3 years ago
Yeah nobody is disputing the hot water can injure someone. You think I don't understand what boiling water can do to someone? And it doesn't matter if other companies serve cold coffee.
How do you even cook food? You understand the danger and are careful about it. It's commonly understood that coffee is hot and therefore people need to be careful of it. Don't put yourself in a situation where a whole cup could spill all over your groin. I've been boiling water every day at the shockingly high temperature of 100C and somehow I've managed to avoid putting it in my groin area. Crazy, I know!
The link is to a personal injury law firm. How do you think their business would be affected if there was proper health care and accidents don't result in people in a desperate situation where they have to sue someone or go bankrupt? Probably enough of a negative impact that personal injury lawyers are incentivized to promote the idea that McDonald's was evil for serving coffee slightly hotter than other companies. Because they gotta promote the idea that suing someone that gets injured so they can pay their medical bills is a good and correct way of doing things. Which is why this silly meme persists.
bane_killgrind 5 points 3 years ago
Yeah wow a business wants to show competency in their core product, and educate their customers about how to mitigate their costs with their service.
Even without your stupid healthcare system, companies need to be held accountable for negligence. Until we all pull this stick out of our ass and demand governments provide real effective consumer protections, going after the wallet of idiot business is going to be the way.
bane_killgrind 6 points 3 years ago
Wow you must be some kind of cunt scientist, moaning about the fact that the water obviously wasn't boiling because it was liquid. Significantly under 100C, sure.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/....
Water at a temperature as low as 54C "can result in a full-thickness skin burn in 30 seconds" as in, 3rd degree burns.
How fast can a 79 year old strip in a parking lot?
In a kitchen you are an least handling your boiling liquids in rigid containers instead of cardboard. Why would you be walking around with that full hot pot anyway? Did you order your pot of mac and cheese to go?
The stupid thing here is instead of the government enforcing safe products that are fit for purpose, this kind of damage to a person is civil and a tort.
SpaceCowboy 1 point 3 years ago
Nah I'm the kind of scientist that actually measured the temperature of a cup of Maxwell House instant coffee. Because actual scientist test instead of just believing rando articles from personal injury lawyers.
Black (just coffee crystals and water): 88C With two spoonfuls of sugar: 80C With sugar and cream: 68C <- I drank it at this temperature, it was nice!
Feel free to peer review my findings. You only need instant coffee, a kettle and a thermometer.
bane_killgrind 1 point 3 years ago
A carafe, a window, a cardboard cup, and someone sitting in a car next to the window.
Or did this old lady walk up to a counter?
This experiment doesn't seem too well thought out.
SpaceCowboy 1 point 3 years ago
So you concede the point that the temperature of the coffee was fine?
So basically you think McDonald's shouldn't sell coffee at the drive through window. If you were saying that, then sure, maybe I can be convinced of that. But the main point of that the "coffee was too hot" is completely invalid.
BTW what happened in reality was McDonald's didn't significantly change the temperature of their coffee (it's supposed to be hot), they improved their lids and put a "warning coffee is hot" label on the cups. You could still suffer third degree burns from dumping coffee on your groin, so heed the warning on the label and be careful with it.
SpaceCowboy 1 point 3 years ago
Nice try personal injury lawyer.
SpaceCowboy -5 points 3 years ago
You want to appeal to shock and emotion because logic isn't on your side.
SpaceCowboy -4 points 3 years ago
I think you're ignorant to some facts:
- Boiling water is dangerous.
- Boiling water is something we regularly encounter.
- People understand the need to be careful to avoid horrific injuries.
- Accidents happen.
- Lack of healthcare puts people in a desperate situation where they have to sue someone to pay their medical bills when they have an accident.
- The link above this discussion is to a personal injury law firm which is incentived to promote the idea that suing people to pay medical bills is good and proper. A little sus isn't it?
You're only at the level where you're having an emotional reaction to the horrific nature of the injury due to an accident. You feel like it's heartless to not have sympathy for someone who was injured in such a way.
I'm at the level where I'm sympathetic for people that have similar accidents without a big corporation nearby that they can sue to pay their medical bills. Just google random images of third degree burns (if that's your thing) and understand that unlike the images you linked to, a lot of the people in the other images went bankrupt because of those injuries. So who deserves the most sympathy?
Why are you so heartless that you don't care about people that suffered these injuries and didn't have McDonald's pay their medical bills? Emotion emotion emotion!
assassin_aragorn 1 point 3 years ago
A semi quantitative risk analysis (LOPA) for industrial safety would find this event to be absolutely unacceptable.
So there's the logic you're looking for. Industry safety standards would flag this and demand several additional protections.
SpaceCowboy 1 point 3 years ago
My kitchen has a stove I can burn myself on, knives I can cut myself with. Oh and a kettle that sometimes contains boiling water.
Does my kitchen not meet your "semi quantitative risk analysis (LOPA) for industrial safety"?
sebinspace 23 points 3 years ago
That’s.. not really the point here…. …?
FlyingSquid 3 points 3 years ago
I don't know from personal experience (not a coffee fan), but my wife tells me it's not bad these days.
Stumblinbear 0 points 3 years ago
It's all burnt dark roast beans. Gotta get the Good Shit™ by grinding your own beans, it's a whole different world
LastYearsPumpkin 4 points 3 years ago
Are you really comparing McDonald's to homemade anything? People don't buy McDonald's because it's better than homemade, they buy McDonald's because it's fast and easier than homemade.
Stumblinbear -1 points 3 years ago
It's barely coffee, it's literally burnt. I'm comparing anything not burnt to anything burnt. It just so happens I used homemade as an alternative.
crispy_kilt 1 point 3 years ago
Apparently, people in the US
oatscoop 1 point 3 years ago
My home coffee setup is quite frankly obscene and I used to be a snob about it. It took me a while to realize I was just being an asshole and that every cup of coffee doesn't need to be an "experience" or masterpiece.
So to answer your question: people that aren't snobs. It's cheap, convenient, and inoffensive drip coffee -- and sometimes that's all someone wants.
bufordt -20 points 3 years ago
They didn't serve the coffee at that temp to save money, they did it because that was the recommended holding temp for coffee.
After this lawsuit, they didn't lower their coffee temps, they just made better cups and lids, and added more warnings.
Quill7513 13 points 3 years ago
Recommended by who, is the thing. The recommended holding temp for coffee is 110°, McDonalds of that era was holding it at 200°, and claiming it was so that when you arrived at your destination with your coffee it would have cooled down to drinking temperature, even though that is not what people use drive throughs for
Quill7513 10 points 3 years ago
Okay so I was going off at home brewing recs for specialty coffee where you usually drink your coffee at 90-100° or lower. The national Batista association recommends 155° as the holding temp so that after 2 minutes its drinkable for the crowd who likes it hot and 4 minutes for the crowd who likes the flavors to develop.
But none of this is the real point.
The real point is that holding coffee at 200° is a dangerous idea that only benefits the corporate entity, McDonalds
bufordt -2 points 3 years ago
I'm having a hard time finding anyone who recommended 90-100F or lower for drinking, even with specialty light roasts. I usually drink my specialty light roast pour overs at 130-135F. I think you might be mixing up brew temps in Celsius for drinking temps in Fahrenheit.
The National Coffee Association says coffee should be served at 180-185F, which seems high. McDonald's was holding their coffee at 180-190F, not 200F, and they still hold their coffee at or near that temp. The only changes from this lawsuit were that they designed better cups and lids, and put more warnings on the coffee.
I'm not arguing that McDonald's should have won the lawsuit, or even that they did nothing wrong, but this common TIL and most of the "facts" in this thread are misleading or just wrong.
Stumblinbear 5 points 3 years ago
I can almost guarantee you nobody is drinking 200° coffee. Hell, not even 160°. Closer to 140° is where it gets bearable without burning your mouth, but that's still pushing it
bufordt -5 points 3 years ago
Did I say people drink their coffee at 200F? I was responding to someone claiming that coffee should be held at 110F, which is fucking crazy.
Drinking temps are usually 125-140F, holding and serving temps should be higher than drinking temps, especially if people might add cream to it.
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It's pretty screwed up how the media made light of this lawsuit.
A lawsuit that ended in gross negligence, and the media shamed the lady involved for a decade.
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