I've never understood this. She bought hot coffee, put it between her legs, and spilled it. If I'd done that, I would feel foolish and blame no one but myself. What reasonable person is surprised that coffee is served hot enough to scald you?
> Liebeck acknowledged that the spill was her fault. What she took issue with was that the coffee was so ridiculously hot — at up to 190 degrees Fahrenheit [88C], near boiling point — that it caused third-degree burns on her legs and genitals, nearly killing her and requiring extensive surgery to treat.
> McDonald’s apparently knew that this was unsafe. In the decade before Liebeck’s spill, McDonald’s had received 700 reports of people burning themselves. McDonald’s admitted that its coffee was a hazard at such high temperatures. But it continued the practice, enforced by official McDonald’s policy, of heating up its coffee to near-boiling point. (McDonald’s claimed customers wanted the coffee this hot.)
> Liebeck didn’t want to go to court. She just wanted McDonald’s to pay her medical expenses, estimated at $20,000. McDonald’s only offered $800, leading her to file a lawsuit in 1994.
> After hearing the evidence, the jury concluded that McDonald’s handling of its coffee was so irresponsible that Liebeck should get much more than $20,000, suggesting she get nearly $2.9 million to send the company a message. Liebeck settled for less than $600,000. And McDonald’s began changing how it heats up its coffee.
>Since Liebeck, McDonald's has not reduced the service temperature of its coffee. McDonald's current policy is to serve coffee at 176–194 °F (80–90 °C),[38] relying on more sternly worded warnings on cups made of rigid foam to avoid future liability, though it continues to face lawsuits over hot coffee.
> According to Dr. Fredericka Brown and Dr. Kenneth Diller, mechanical engineering professors at The University of Texas at Tyler, the optimal temperature range for serving hot beverages is between 125°F and 136°F. Their research shows that although there are varying preferences regarding the optimal temperature for beverage consumption, drinking a hot beverage outside of this range can negatively impact taste and cause physical discomfort. In some cases, drinking beverages that are above this temperature range can lead to serious burns to the mouth, tongue, and esophagus.
> Hot beverages such as tea, hot chocolate, and coffee are frequently served at temperatures between 160 degrees F (71.1 degrees C) and 185 degrees F (85 degrees C). Brief exposures to liquids in this temperature range can cause significant scald burns. However, hot beverages must be served at a temperature that is high enough to provide a satisfactory sensation to the consumer. This paper presents an analysis to quantify hot beverage temperatures that balance limiting the potential scald burn hazard and maintaining an acceptable perception of adequate product warmth.
Of course the temperature you make coffee at, and the temperature you serve coffee at, and the temperature you drink coffee at, may not all be the same.
One should also keep in mind the serving container: some retain heat more than others, and so the temperature drop gradient may be different and should probably be considered as well.
You shouldn't use boiling water to make coffee unless you want it to be bitter.
General rule is you want 195-205F water, so you boil, wait 30 seconds, bloom the coffee, wait another 30 seconds, make the coffee.
Finished coffee is around around 185-188F when I use a french press or pourover, I assume the air, container, and the grounds all absorb some of the heat. After about 5 minutes its a very drinkable ~160.
Heated not necessarily to 100˚C. Just a raising the temperature. It's also why there are temperature-controlled kettles (in addition to 'simple' ones that are just on/off):
Show me a high quality espresso machine that at the time of extraction has boiling water contacting the portafilter. I'll save you the trouble, because no such machine exists.
My point was it’s very obvious that boiling water is part of making coffee I’m shocked at the willed ignorance so that we can all pretend McDonalds was negligent.
But it’s mental gymnastics. I’m not sure why. I assume some anti-corporate/big company sentiment.
I don't think it's mental gymnastics. The key fact of what I'm trying to argue here, and the lawsuit against mcdonald's, is that at the time, McDonald's was keeping the resting temperature of the coffee far too hot. Not only far hotter than any other location in the same town that sold coffee, but also, as I'm trying to demonstrate, hotter than coffee produced in a normal pour-over process.
It's unreasonable for customers to assume that McDonald's coffee is significantly hotter than every other coffee on the market, and also hotter than fresh coffee they make themselves at home.
I don't really have strong opinions on the "McDonald's kept the coffee near boiling so that people wouldn't request refills in store" bit, since it doesn't make a whole lot of sense as black coffee is dirt cheap and making it hotter only encourages people to consume more cream, which is expensive. Reasoning aside though, it's pretty obvious why McDonald's was found liable.
I used to get McDonald's coffee back in those days (to go to work digging ditches), and it was incredibly irritating how long it would take for the damn stuff to cool down so it didn't burn your mouth. Since I have ADHD and a low tolerance for waiting for my caffeine I would drink it, burn the skin of the inside of my mouth, curse out McDonalds, and continue drinking because caffeine!
Also crappy lids. The modern ones have a kind of button that you push and it doesn't really exert an upwards force on the lid. In those days, you had to peel part of the plastic up and away from the lid and it was easy to take the lid off by accident. I don't think that was a major part of the lawsuit, but practically anyone who was a teen or adult in North America at the same time had an experience of spilling McDonalds coffee or hot chocolate.
Well these are well known facts to any kid who is beyond first experience with styrofoam cups, heck apart from appalling chemistry being leaked into drink, I do actually prefer cups that keep temperature longer when ordering drinks. That's the whole purpose if styrofoam here. Heck, there is whole business around thermal mugs for exactly this purpose. Same would be valid for standard tea - you start with cca 100C and its actually how it should be. If you don't like it hot, order something else or go someplace else.
If we would be talking about case of little kid not knowing this type of cup burning themselves, even way less than she did, then that's a completely different story. Or was she also somehow mentally impaired to not understand hot=bad in groin? But as facts are presented, people do themselves harm with stuff that is well known and expected to cause harm.
If I let chainsaw in my lap and accidentally start it somehow via normal way it should be started, well that would be also life-changing injury, and result of my utter stupidity and nothing else. I do get I could sue the company making it, and if in US I can actually win but that's ridiculous.
Sorry, as much as I hate corporations including McDonald for many, many of their transgressions, this one is properly ridiculous even with all the facts stated and all the time passed. There is no end to people getting themselves injured or killed every single effin' day, even right now, doing stupid things with dangerous stuff. Some internet sites are just endless daily streams of records of that, and its pretty damn crazy. So instead of lesson being 'be careful with dangerous stuff, the dangerous part is serious', we bend reality backwards so hot coffee is not hot, just warm, because somebody will put it in their laps, or throw it on another person, or will pour it over their face.
Instead of saying ie - McDonald, please present 2 types of cups, one for people like me, call it 'hot that lasts' and charge extra 20c for it as an added value, and another 'warm coffee that won't burn ya even if you shower in it'. I really don't see actual moral lesson for McDonald in this case. A little bit of personal responsibility expected from citizens would be much, much better lesson for society as a whole.
Nobody drinks tea anywhere near 100C; that’s absurd. Ideal tea drinking temperature is between 57 and 65C, anything higher risks throat damage [1]. All but the blackest teas will fail to brew if held at 100C for the duration of steeping.
Coffee usually isn't kept near boiling after being made. That actually causes some chemical reactions in the coffee to speed up and makes it more bitter quickly
1. Styrofoam cups are good heat insulators, so touching the cup does not communicate how hot the contents are.
2. Management intentionally made the coffee too hot. Making the coffee too hot to drink meant people would not get refills because they would drink it more slowly. This is the company knowingly do something unsafe for profit.
3. The award was the amount of money McDonald's makes on coffee in a single day. It seems like a lot of money, but a very small amount for the giant.
The real nail here is that mgmt sent emails explicitly about number 2.
