The Dangers of Cold Beverages

I've spoken before about how Chinese dislike cold beverages. For example, most water coolers (those office-style water dispensers) don't cool water at all. The blue tap usually just dispenses room temp water.

To the right is more evidence of this predilection. See the word "cold" that's written underneath the one can of Coca-Cola? That's there to let buyers know that that's the button that will dispense a cold can. The others? Room temp.

I've noticed, too, that some of the little markets around our house have refrigerated cases for beverages (the free-standing kind with glass doors), but they don't plug them in. They use the cases as shelf-space only. This seems weird to me and reminds of food going bad -- probably because the only time I see room temp food in a fridge is after a power-outage that lasts for days.