What's In The Water: Famous Beverage Crimes 1

Technical difficulties have caused this to post on the wrong day two separate times now. The next post will be this Friday, as is within my power.

We are well aware of the fact that the first thing people think when they walk in Pour Jons is, "How can I use my drink to take over the world?" Unfortunately, the track record for crimes using tea and coffee is not in your favor. Pour Jons employees are highly trained in beverage counter-espionage, but we're going to share with you some of our course materials today. Let's look at a famous case of scalding drink scandals.

McDonald's Black Brew


I'm sure you've all heard this hackneyed example of everything wrong with the justice system:

A woman gets a cup of coffee to go, and while she is driving she spills it and burns herself. She then sues McDonald's for everything they're worth because their coffee shouldn't be so hot. In the process, she walks away with millions in damages all because the upholstery on her snazzy Lexus got stained.

If that were true, it would indeed be a lame story about America. The truth is a little more palatable, however. In reality, the woman suffered third-degree burns over a fifth of her body, she was not driving the car at the time, and had to be hospitalized for a week. She sued to cover her medical costs and was awarded a grand total of $640,000. To put it even more in perspective, the court only awarded her this much to compensate for the fact that over 250,000 other similar complaints had been filed, including numerous reports of third-degree burns, and ignored by McDonald's corporate.

They were brewing and serving their coffee at 190 degrees because an "expert" had told them that it would preserve the taste better to keep it at that temperature. 190 degrees will give you a nasty burn.

Here's the problem.

Bad Coffee: Inspiration for Pirate Flags

Coffee is indeed best when brewed between 190-200 degrees. But if you then continue to cook it at that temperature after it is brewed, you sizzle and fry and murder all the lovely little flavors in it. This is why coffee you've left in the pot on the burner all morning never tastes good with lunch. Admit it, you've all done that at some point. McDonald's was facing lawsuits out of a misguided and desperate attempt to make their coffee taste better.

We do admit, they need all the help they can get. This is also why Pour Jons will always brew coffee when it is ordered. If we don't take the time, it just tastes bad. And then we end up burning women.


I was going to discuss another famous beverage crime today, but this one took up a bunch of space, so I'll save it for next week.

In other news, This week get a dollar off a pour over if you make a snooty comment about how you prefer your coffee brewed at exactly 193.7 degrees.


Drink up, me hearties!

~P.J.