A shopper in China recently learned that biting a smartphone battery isn't exactly the best way to test its authenticity.

According to a report from Taiwan News, a man entered an electronics store in China on January 19 in search of a replacement battery for his iPhone. Seemingly suspecting the battery on offer was fake, he inexplicably decided to bite into the unit to see if it was real. Much to his surprise, the battery was indeed legitimate as evident by the fact that it exploded upon being punctured.

The incident was captured by the store's security camera and posted on Chinese video sharing site miaopai.com the following day. It has since been viewed more than 4.5 million times according to the publication. Fortunately, nobody was injured by the blast although as you can see in the clip (republished on YouTube), plenty of folks were startled by the episode.

Exactly what the man was trying to accomplish isn't clear. Authenticity aside (the Chinese market is ripe with knockoff batteries attempting to pass as legitimate OEM parts), maybe he thought the battery was a dummy model that wasn't a real battery at all? Then again, we live in a world where people are eating Tide laundry detergent for fun so perhaps seeking a logical explanation is an exercise in futility.

Nevertheless, it goes without saying: don't bite into your smartphone battery.