Everyone else is sipping their tea. Why does yours still feel too hot to drink? Is it a psychological problem or dental?

You and your friend go to a cafe and order freshly prepared tea. It comes and your friend immediately takes a sip. You decide to wait. After 10 minutes, you try it, and it is still hot. Your friend asks you what happened. You tell them it is too hot for you. By the time you begin taking the first comfortable sip, your friend has finished his tea.

Your friends say it was not so hot that you waited so long to drink it. You can’t explain it but it really felt uncomfortable. It was not too hot for you. They may think you are too sensitive but is it really so?

Some people even say that since you worry too much about the heat so you feel it more.


The explanation can involve physical sensitivity and the brain’s interpretation of sensations. Sometimes, the drink is simply hotter than you find pleasant. Sometimes, pain points to a dental problem.

Preferring lukewarm tea alone does not establish a medical condition or a psychological trait. But if you prefer lukewarm team, that doesn’t mean something is wrong with you.

What makes a hot drink feel painful?

Tempearture is a physical condition. So your nervous system reacts to it when it feels something harmful is going on. Everyone’s nervous system has different reactions to different situations.

In 1997, Michael Caterina, David Julius and their colleagues discovered a receptor called TRPV1. It detects capsaicin, the substance that makes chillies feel hot. It also responds to heat strong enough to cause pain.

Consider these receptors as body’s way of warning you about danger, threat or pain.

This explains why extra heat leads to pain. However, the research is based on heat and pain and not about people drinking tea and the findings can be applied to the situation.

There are no laboratory tests providing a universal drinking temperature. So it is different for each person. Also, how your mouth responds to different drinks and temperatures depend on how researchers test biological mechanisms of a person.

Can your mind influence how hot drinks feel?

Yes, your mind builds expectations before you drink something and if it is contradictory, it can influence pain, But your mind cannot build the sensation, so if your feeling pain it is not imaginary.

Let us understand the gate control theory to know about pain in a better way. The theory was proposed by Psychologist Ronald Melzack and neuroscientist Patrick Wall proposed in 1965.

They challenged the idea that pain has a simple path. It travels through an unchanged line from where the injury happened to the brain for response.

The theory says that the spinal cord acts as a gate which either blocks the pain or let it pass through the brain. So the nervous system can increase or decrease the transmission of pain.

This example is not based on drinking tea but how pain travels through the body. It talks about how nervous system processes information when other physical factors are also involved.

So you cannot call any simple experience as physical or mental as both systems work in sync. .

What have experiments found about pain expectations?

Yes, there are some experiments done to understand pain and one such study was done in 2005. The research was conducted by Tetsuo Koyama and colleagues, including Robert Coghill.

In the experiment, ten healthy volunteers received controlled heat stimulation on their lower legs.

Volunteers reported different experience for different waiting times for the same heat levels. Multiple heat levels showed how waiting time influence the experience.

Volunteers reported less pain when they expected less pain. When they felt the heat was strong and the waiting time was also long they felt more heat.

Researchers concluded that volunteers experience what they were expecting at that moment.

Imagine someone approaching a fresh cup cautiously after previously burning their tongue. Their expectations could be relevant. Positive thinking also cannot make dangerously hot liquid safe.

Could sensitive teeth explain the discomfort?

Yes. Teeth sensitivity is a common problem among people, So the next time you feel the pain you need to notice which particular tooth is causing it and get tested by the dentists.

Should you train yourself to drink hotter beverages?

You do not need to change yourself for others, Drink your tea and coffee they way you like and whatever temperature you prefer. There is no need to force yourself to match someone else’s preference.

If you feel the the tea is hot, you should wait till it feels comfortable. Let the other person take their sip. Enjoy it on your own time and don’t feel pressurized by others.