Something about Japan’s food culture that I realized long ago is that most people have a very high tolerance for hot food and drink. Hot as in temperature hot, not spicy hot. When it comes to myself, however, I have what is known in Japan a neko jita (猫舌), a term literally meaning “cat’s tongue” that is used to describe people who can’t eat or drink hot things (cats will drink warm milk, but if served milk that is too hot they wait for it to cool).
I prefer iced tea over hot, although I can drink hot sencha as it is normally made using water that is 70 or 80 degrees C, not boiling. I learned long ago that when eating tachigui soba (stand and eat soba, where quick customer turnover is essential for the business) I should eat cold soba, not hot. I learned this by watching customer served at the same time as myself finish eating a bowl of hot soba before I could eat a single bite. When my wife and I eat nabe (hot pot) at home she always finishes fer bowl before I can barely get started. I could go on.
A few years back my wife and I were seated next to a doctor at the counter of a restaurant in Kyoto when we started talking about the relationship between consuming hot food and drink and the high rate of esophageal cancer in Japan. It made sense to me that too much heat could damage the cells in the throat, just like too much sunlight can damage skin cells and lead to cancer.
It turns out I was correct; there is a link between consuming hot food and drinks and throat cancer. According to an article in The Guardian oon-line from Nov. 13, 2023:
“There are systematic reviews and meta-analyses that show drinking very hot drinks is associated with oesophageal cancer,” says Julie Thompson of Guts UK, a charity devoted to raising awareness around digestive health. “These are what are called observation studies that look at how many people develop cancer over time. The evidence is that drinking very hot drinks, or eating very hot causes damage to the gullet [also known as the oesophagus]. The risk is associated with squamous cell carcinoma, which is a type of cancer that occurs at the top end of the gullet, rather than another type called adenocarcinoma, which occurs further down.”
Of course, temperature is not the only factor contributing to the risk of throat cancer. Smoking and alcohol consumption also play major roles. Which may partially explain why the countries with the highest rates of throat cancer are mostly in eastern Africa, with Japanese men being tenth on the list (Eastern Asia has by far the highest rates in the world overall).
Time for another glass of iced tea.