I ran across an article this morning that describes a pretty crazy scene. It was allegedly at a large fast food chain in Sweden. The story, via the website www.thelocal.se describes a scene where a woman stops by a local restaurant for a Cappuccino. She then takes a sip and begins to feel burning sensations (not from the heat) and the cup also begins to disintegrate. Here’s a quote.

“I thought it was really strange when I found out what was in my cup, especially when I saw that the substance was corrosive, it made me angry,” Hanna Tenman, 24, told The Local.

Tenman explained that she started drinking the coffee at work and that her throat started burning. She then asked her colleague to take a sip. Her colleague agreed something was amiss – and then the cup began to dissolve right before their eyes.

Now, I’m completely speculating on what the “cleaner” was that she observed or what in there, but it sure sounds like something they used to descale the coffee machine. It’s actually a very common occurrence to have to descale it, especially when there is heavy use.

The lesson learned here is this. If you are using a liquid descaler to for maintenance on food and beverage items like to descale coffee makers, descale ice machines or descale tankless water heaters, make sure that you are completely flushing out any of the residual descaling liquid, and also make sure its appropriately labels for potable water use.