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You want to talk about the facts? Ok. Here's some insight for you: the temperature at which coffee is brewed is not the temperature at which it should be served or consumed. Coffee should be brewed at approximately 96 to 98 degrees Celsius. Drinking it at that temperature would, however, be incredibly stupid.

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0305417907002550

The burn model shows the standard exponential dependence of injury level on temperature. The preferred drinking temperature of coffee is specified in the literature as 140 +/- 15 deg F (60 +/- 8.3 deg C) for a population of 300 subjects. A linear (with respect to temperature) figure of merit merged the two effects to identify an optimal drinking temperature of approximately 136 deg F (57.8 deg C).

Still don't believe me? Well, find some sources, because all the ones I find indicate that water at temperatures of 150 degrees and upward can cause serious burns in a mere 2 seconds.

http://www.texaschildrenspediatrics.org/healthlibrary/pa_hotwatr_hhg.aspx
  http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/HealthAZ/Burn-Safety-Hot-Water-Temperature.aspx?articleID=8652&categoryID=AZ6d
  http://www.cpnonline.org/CRS/CRS/pa_hotwatr_pep.htm
  http://www.ct.gov/dds/cwp/view.asp?a=12&q=379294
  http://www.tap-water-burn.com/pamphlet/water_use.htm

60 Hot bath

If you can get in a 60C/140F bath you are either one tough or one scalded individual.

1 second exposure to 160 degree water = third degree burns:

http://www.tap-water-burn.com/

McDonald's coffee was 185 degrees:

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm

The National Coffee Association are going to get their asses sued, and good riddance to them.

http://www.tap-water-burn.com/

Tell you what. How about you pour yourself a nice hot cup of 190 degree coffee, and "enjoy it immediately", and see if you end up looking like the person in the picture on that website.

Given that water that takes longer than 30 seconds to cause 3rd degree burns is, in fact, cooler than the temperatures reached in some parts of the US, I'd wonder how much business any coffee store would get serving coffee cooler than the temperature outside. Or did you not know that more than half of the US states have temperature maximums within the range of 110 - 130 F?

Furthermore, the coffee was spilled on to clothing that took this lady quite a while to remove, up to 30 seconds. It is questionable whether "cold" coffee would have even saved her parts, unless it was served colder than her car interior.

But hey, don't let logic cloud your judgement, she was horribly scarred through her own actions, and therefore a corporation must pay. I think GM should pay every person who gets a burn from a red vinyl car interior as well (I've seen it happen before!). Heck, while we're at it, I'd like to sue the city for making asphalt sidewalks. They're black and could cause burns to bare feet! And I've never seen the city buy me shoes so therefore it's their fault.

• it either ain't fresh and I'm sending it back, because it's probably been sitting in some container stewing into tire-flavoured crap
• or it's been made with water that's too cold in the first place, and will therefore taste like ass, and I'm sending it back.

In the second paragraph, you state the coffee-lap victim received third-degree burns. If the coffee really was 185 degree F, I could believe it. (Actually, I think you're actually being conservative. I just googled the ATLA Tap Water Burn Litigation Center which says that third-degree scalds can form in 1 second at 160 degrees. But these folks appear to be lawyers who sue people and organizations which "cause" hot-tap-water injuries, so take their scientific information with a "science as played out in court" grain of salt. A court of law isn't scientific peer-review, after all.)

Anyways, in the rest of your article, you refer only to first-degree burns. In particular, I find it hard to believe that first-degree burns would ever require skin grafts.

So I'm forced to conclude that (A) at least once in the rest of the article, you meant "third-degree", particular in reference to grafting; and (B) the energized tone of your writing, while sincere, probably interfered with your ability to proofread your writing.

Not trying to be pedantic, though I usually don't have to try too hard for that anyways, but your perfectly good point may have suffered by your presentation. Just so you know.

Discuss among yourselves....