Sarah Katz, 21, had a heart condition and was not aware of the drink’s caffeine content, which exceeded that of cans of Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined, according to a legal filing
Sarah Katz, 21, had a heart condition and was not aware of the drink’s caffeine content, which exceeded that of cans of Red Bull and Monster energy drinks combined, according to a legal filing
The beverage contains 390mg, which is equivalent to 6.5 cups of coffee. I hope this will be used as a case study for other businesses on how to properly label your drinks and further increase transparancy about ingredients used in beverages.
A typical drip coffee contains roughly 100mg of caffeine per 8 oz cup, which means a 30 oz cup of coffee would contain very similar amounts to one of the charged lemonades in question. Or course, caffeine varies wildly in coffee depending on exactly how it’s brewed as well as bean origin and roast, so you could easily see well over 400mg in a 30oz drink. And let’s not even get started on adding extra shots of espresso.
For what it’s worth, while most of what you said is accurate, espresso contains considerably less caffeine than people tend to think it does. What makes espresso so intense on that front is the concentration per volume, and how fast espresso beverages are consumed in comparison to drip coffee. Drinking a 12oz cup of drip over an hour or two is pretty standard. A double shot cappuccino though, not so much.
Pretty standard where? Literally nobody I know drinks coffee this slow.
I don’t think it’s that uncommon to sit down with a mug of coffee and sip on it over the course of an hour while working or having a chat with someone but maybe my 10 years of specialty coffee experience led me astray.
After about 15 minutes coffee tastes disgusting to me. Gets so stale and gross. After an hour I would gag and spit it out.
Good quality coffee should continue to develop in flavor substantially as it cools and is actually quite interesting to taste across the temperature spectrum. I’m sorry that hasn’t been your experience. I do understand coffee is not for everybody, but I do believe if you have the opportunity to experience well prepared craft coffee it has the potential to change that view.
Think of cooling coffee having a similar effect as decanting wine, because high end coffee is actually extremely similar to wine. The fruit is fermented in massive containers in a very similar fashion to wine making, imparting a large volume of complex flavors. The act of roasting coffee is actually one of the most difficult sciences in the culinary world, to the point that Michelin starred chefs want nothing to do with it - it’s actually that difficult to execute well. It is pretty easy for somebody to grab a bag of green coffee and absolutely destroy it. It’s incredibly rare for someone to do a coffee its justice. And even then, if the person preparing it once it is roasted doesn’t know what they are doing, they can take the best coffee in the world and make it taste awful.
I’m sorry but you do not sound like a coffee person. I cannot comprehend a world where I live in where I get tired of my beverage of coffee after 15 minutes because it became disgusting.
6.5 thimble-sized cups. Compare to an average large coffee (431mg/20oz from Dunkin), or to the average amount consumed by coffee drinkers (~200mg for adults on average, with the 90th percentile being 300-400mg depending on the age group).
This touches on yet another conflating factor. The personal tolerance to caffeine varies wildly from person to person. Some can’t have even one cup a day, while others will down an entire pot and just shrug.
This is an absolute tragedy, but Panera is not legally liable. They should however respect her death by improving their signage and giving much more information. A warning that high consumption can be fatal with rare, unknown conditions seems appropriate.
Yeah, I agree. “As much caffeine as our coffee” should be replaced with an explicit number in milligrams and be presented in a standardized label format. It’s important information.
Holy crap, just imagine if they accidentally got the mix ratio on the machine wrong and somebody got a higher concentration of syrup.
Panera needs to lose this lawsuit and they need to lose it really hard.