That hot drinks cause oesophageal cancer has been known since 1998 - I was working in green tea research in the early 2000s and read this article back then. From the abstract:

There were 440 oesophageal cancer deaths during the period from January 1966 to December 1981. Person-years at risk were 3,065,182 in total. Rate ratio and 95% confidence interval adjusted for attained age, prefecture, occupation and sex were (RR (95% CI)): 1.6 (1.2-2.0) for hot tea (drinking green tea at high temperatures) in comparison with not-hot tea (drinking green tea at moderate temperatures); 2.4 (1.8-3.1) for daily (4 times/week or more) alcohol drinking in comparison with non-drinking; and 2.3 (1.7-3.1) for heavy smoking (15 cigarettes/day or more) in comparison with non-smoking.

So they found that hot tea increased the risk by 1.2-2 times, which is not completely out of line with this study - the Japanese study was 220 thousand people, and this one was almost a million, and it's in a different country at a different time, so there will be other factors.

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

I wonder if there is contributing comorbidities involved. Cause I know I reach for a cigarette with my morning coffee.