this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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Summary

A California jury awarded Michael Garcia $50 million after he suffered severe burns from a spilled Starbucks hot tea, requiring skin grafts and causing permanent disfigurement.

Garcia’s lawsuit alleged a Starbucks employee failed to secure the drink in a tray, leading to the spill. Starbucks offered a $30 million settlement with confidentiality, which Garcia rejected.

The company plans to appeal, calling the damages excessive.

The case echoes past lawsuits over hot beverage burns, including the famous McDonald’s coffee case from the 1990s.

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[–] MSids@lemmy.world -4 points 18 hours ago (14 children)

Black tea needs to be brewed pretty close to boiling, and even green tea is brewed at 185, the same temp as the McDonald's coffee incident. I don't know how you can brew tea to order and hand it to someone a moment later without it still being at almost the exact same temperature. Tea also needs 3-5 minutes to steep, and you can't hold up a drive through just to hand it over.

I'm not much for Starbucks, so don't take this as me defending them, but I think most honest people would have trouble articulating why this merits a $50mm lawsuit. Imagine a similar ruling coming down on your local cafe.

[–] mocha@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago (9 children)

This is just straight up false. I regularly brew black and herbal teas at 70-75°C (158-167°F) if I'm in a rush. It steeps long before cooling to a drinkable temperature. I haven't tried brewing green tea this way but I doubt it's much different.

Sun tea is brewed barely above ambient temperature (although that of course takes hours to steep).

[–] MSids@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

I get if you are doing something different personally, but its literally the recommendation on the box. When I was learning about coffee I found that water into the brew basket or pour over at 185 would produce a terrible sour flavor, and that is well known in specialty coffee. Tea seems to be more forgiving, but I still let my water hit a boil before I brew mine. First result on google for a tea shop states the same thing: https://artfultea.com/blogs/101/tea-brewing-temperature-guide

I'm all for ganging up on mega-corps and watching them squirm when a lawsuit comes around, but it may have been a bit extreme to call my statement false. If Starbucks did anything wrong here, to me it was the cup not being seated in the carrier, not the water temperature.

[–] mocha@lemmy.world -2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

I called the statement false, because it is. If it were true, sun tea would not be possible. Tea brewed at progressively lower temperatures has longer steeping time, but tea can indeed be brewed much lower than boiling point. I encourage you to test this yourself if you don't believe me.

Also, I emphasize again: I literally brew tea at 70°C all the time. So no, tea does not need to be brewed at 100°C.

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