Is Your Tea Too Hot? Oxford Study Links Very Hot Drinks to Threefold Risk of One Oesophageal Cancer Type

People who prefer their tea or coffee very hot may face around three times the risk of developing one form of oesophageal cancer, according to a major University of Oxford study.

Researchers analysed data from 977,282 adults enrolled in the UK Biobank and the Million Women Study, following their health records for more than a decade.

However, the finding applies specifically to oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, or SCC. It does not mean that drinking very hot beverages triples a person's overall cancer risk, and the observational research cannot prove that hot drinks directly cause cancer.

Findings from the Oxford Study

The study, published on 9 September 2026 in the International Journal of Cancer, compared participants according to whether they described their preferred drinks as warm, hot or very hot.

Those who preferred very hot beverages had approximately 3.17 times the risk of developing SCC compared with participants who drank them warm. People who preferred hot drinks had nearly twice the risk.

Frequency also appeared to matter. After accounting for preferred temperature, consuming six or more hot drinks a day was associated with a 71% higher SCC risk than drinking fewer than six.

Researchers recorded 2,348 cases of oesophageal cancer during the follow-up period, including 1,045 cases of SCC and 1,303 cases of adenocarcinoma, the other main form of the disease.

Neither drink temperature nor consumption frequency showed a strong association with adenocarcinoma.

Temperature, Not the Beverage, Increases Risk

The study did not find that tea or coffee itself was responsible for the increased risk. Instead, the association concerned the temperature at which any hot beverage was consumed.

Dr Keren Papier, the lead researcher and a senior nutritional epidemiologist at Oxford Population Health, said the research added to international evidence linking very hot drinks with SCC.

Researchers suggest that repeated exposure to high temperatures may damage the cells lining the oesophagus. Over time, this thermal injury could cause inflammation or leave the tissue more vulnerable to cancer-causing substances.

This remains a possible explanation rather than a proven biological mechanism.

Defining 'Very Hot'

An important limitation is that researchers did not measure the temperature of each participant's drinks. People instead reported whether they preferred them warm, hot or very hot, meaning those descriptions may have varied between individuals.

The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer defines very hot beverages as those consumed above 65°C. In 2016, it classified drinking beverages above that temperature as 'probably carcinogenic to humans'.

The Oxford categories cannot be directly matched to that threshold because participants' drinks were not individually measured. Further research is needed to determine which temperatures could increase the risk among UK consumers.

Practical Guidance for Drinkers

The findings do not suggest that people need to abandon tea or coffee. Cancer Research UK says those who are concerned can allow their drink to cool slightly before taking a sip.

The charity also stresses that SCC remains relatively uncommon in the UK, where the estimated lifetime risk is approximately 1%. A threefold relative increase may sound alarming, but the absolute likelihood of developing the disease remains low.

Not smoking and reducing alcohol consumption remain the most important established ways to lower the risk of SCC.

For regular tea and coffee drinkers, the study points to a simple precaution: allow a scalding drink to cool before consuming it.