For many people, starting the day with a hot coffee or tea is a comforting daily ritual. But how hot is too hot? New research suggests that drinking beverages at very high temperatures on a regular basis may increase the risk of oesophageal cancer, the cancer that affects the tube connecting the mouth to the stomach.
A large study led by researchers at the University of Oxford followed almost one million middle-aged men and women. The findings suggest that people who regularly drank their tea or coffee “very hot” had around three times the risk of developing oesophageal cancer compared with those who preferred their drinks warm. The researchers classified drinks at 65°C or above as “very hot”.
Why could temperature matter? When extremely hot liquid passes through the oesophagus, it can repeatedly irritate and damage the cells lining the food pipe. Over time, this repeated injury may contribute to changes in the cells and increase the likelihood of cancer developing.
However, this does not mean that drinking a very hot coffee will cause cancer. Oesophageal cancer remains relatively rare, and individual risk depends on many factors. Smoking and alcohol consumption, for example, are much more important risk factors. Researchers also point out that more studies are needed to determine exactly which temperatures and drinking patterns are most harmful.
So, should we give up our favourite hot drinks? Not necessarily. A simple precaution may be enough: wait a few minutes before taking the first sip. Adding milk can lower the temperature slightly, but it may not be enough if the drink is still extremely hot.
The message is therefore not “stop drinking coffee or tea”, but rather let it cool down. If a drink is too hot to sip comfortably, it is probably too hot to drink. A few minutes of patience could be a small but sensible habit for protecting our health.
Reference: K. Papier, K. Gaitskell, S. Floud, and G. K. Reeves, “ Hot Drinks and Oesophageal Cancer: Prospective Analyses in Around 1 Million UK Adults,” International Journal of Cancer (2026): 1–9, https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.70654.
Serra Húnter Fellow of Sociology at Universitat Rovira i Virgili.
Former DAAD-Gastprofessorin at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg