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After blessing when drinking

Question:

After eating or drinking you normally say an after blessing.
Some people informed me that when you had a drink, for example coffee, that after a certain ammount of time, 7/8 minutes, that you do not have to say the after blessing(borei nefashos) Is that correct?

Kind regards,

Answer:

What the people told is correct but not the way that it is being presented. After someone takes a drink a bracha achrona has to be recited, if the person drank a reviis (3-5 ounces) of the drink at one time he has to make a bracha achrona, and even if he didn’t say it right away, he may say it until 72 minutes after drinking. There is however a halacha, that in order to make a bracha achrona, a kzayis (approx. one ounce) of the food must be eaten “b’kdei achilas pras” (technically the amount of time that it would take someone to eat three eggs worth of food) which is about 4 minutes (and according to some poskim it is 9 minutes). Eating slower than this halachically is not considered “eating”, and if a person was only sporadically nibbling on some food, even if he ate a lot of it over a long period of time he will not say a bracha achrona.

The poskim do discuss, what is the amount of time regarding drinking, is it also like eating of is it the amount of time that it takes to drink a revvis, which would be only a few seconds. It is controversial, therefore the Mishna Berurah says that if a person drank a reviis slower than that, that he should not make a bracha achrona. This is common when drinking a hot tea or coffee, or even when drinking something that is very cold. The Mishna Berura advises to leave a reviis of the coffee in the cup until it cools, and then one can drink it at one time, and then make a bracha achrona.

This is most probably what these people mean to say.

Best Wishes

Sources:

M:B 210-1,

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