Rachael Davis
It’s weird how not-weird air travel has become. For some reason, many of us are completely nonplussed by the fact we can hurtle through the sky in a metal tube at hundreds of miles an hour - and we can even enjoy a cup of coffee up there.
The vast majority of human history would have seen you burned at the stake for dreaming up such fancies.
It’s nevertheless become so common as for us to forget the magic of it.
But it turns out that the coffee is one part of the liveable dream that might be worth leaving in the airport.
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A flight attendant has shared a pretty grisly reason why the on-board coffee isn’t something you should order, no matter how drowsy you’re feeling at 10,000 feet.
Posting to TikTok under the account @ichbinvin, the flight attendant in question trawled through a Reddit post where his industry comrades shared their 'dirty little secrets'.
There was one coffee-related comment in particular that was cause for alarm.
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It said: "Not a flight attendant, but pilot: Don't drink coffee on board. The water tanks on airplanes are rarely, if ever cleaned, and they use this water to make coffee on board. I don't want to think about colds and bacteria growing in those tanks."
Concerning though that may seem, the water is boiled before being served in coffee, so it should be sterile and safe to drink before you’re served it.
However, the video-maker said this is the least of your troubles when drinking in-flight coffee.
He said that the coffee pots can’t be emptied down the drains, so many attendants will pour the dregs in the toilet.
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"When you take a coffee pot and dump it in the toilet, in order to not make a huge mess everywhere, you have to get a little close to the toilet,” he said.
"I imagine there is some kind of backsplash of particles, bacteria that goes directly back into the coffee pot which gets put right back into the coffee maker.
"So unless the airline you're flying with has an espresso maker on the plane, I would not get regular drip coffee on the plane."
Grim!
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It’s not the only beverage you might want to reconsider. Researchers at CUNY’s Hunter College said its 2019 study advised you should only drink water on a flight if it comes in a sealed bottle.
This covered water, coffee, tea, and even washing your hands with the toilet’s tap water.
Considering the breadth of people who fly every day and no doubt partake in a water-based beverage, there’s a good chance all this concern is overblown.
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But perhaps that queasy feeling when you land on the other side of the planet isn’t just jet lag? Food for thought.