Very hot drinks probably increase the risk of cancer, a UN agency said Wednesday, but coffee — once feared to be a carcinogen — is safe if enjoyed at "normal" temperatures.
Tea and yerba mate, a popular South American herbal infusion, may also be harmful if drunk hotter than 65 degrees Celsius (150 degrees Fahrenheit), the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reported.
"It doesn't matter what the liquid is," said epidemiologist Dana Loomis, who took part in a review of the world's most popular hot beverages. "What matters is the temperature."
With more than 1.1 billion cups of coffee consumed around the world every day, the industry welcomed the beverage's removal from the list of "possibly cancerogenic" substances.