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Nekojita Fufu: Cute cat robot cools your drinks, becomes a viral sensation online

Oona McGee Apr 23, 2025
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Japanese gadget now ready to be shipped around the world.

Have you got “cat’s tongue“? Lots of people do, particularly in Japan, where the term, known as “nekojita” in Japanese, is used to describe people who are sensitive to hot food or drinks.

While those with cat’s tongue usually have to set drinks and food aside until they’ve cooled down a little, there’s now a handy little gadget to speed up the cooling process, and it’s called “Nekojita FuFu“.

“Fufu” is the onomatopoeia for the sound of blowing, especially when blowing on hot food or drink to cool it down, and this cute robot blows air so you don’t have to. Shaped like a cat, the small paws are designed to hook securely onto straight-edged dishware measuring 2-6 millimetres (0.08-0.23 inches) thick.

The gadget offers a choice of either steady or randomised blowing patterns, and it can cool drinks down by 15 degrees Celsius (27 degrees Fahrenheit) after three minutes of use.

▼ A 150-millilitre (5-ounce) mug of hot liquid can even go from 89 to 71 degrees in three minutes, compared to 80 degrees without the gadget.

The silicon body is washable, and the machine is rechargeable, with a USB Type-C connection giving you 60 minutes of use. Measuring in at 8 × 4.7 × 6.5 centimetres, and weighing 110 grams (3.9 0unces), the little cat will easily fit in your pocket or purse so you can use it outside as well as at home.

Nekojita Fufu has been years in the making, with Tsubasa Tominaga, the chief marketing officer at Yukai Engineering, first coming up with the idea for it after he felt dizzy from blowing so hard when attempting to cool food for his toddler sons.

Tsubasa and his wife and sons all have cat’s tongue, so he wondered if a robot could help them out, and after working on the idea with Japanese packaging company Toyo Seikan, he built the first prototype in 2020. While it worked well, it wasn’t commercially viable initially, but when hand-held personal fans became popular, cheaper manufacturing options opened up, making mass production possible.

▼ The mini fan sits inside the cat, whose round mouth is designed to simulate the flow of air from a human.

After debuting in Las Vegas in January at CES, the world’s largest annual consumer technology trade show, Nekojita Fufu became a hit online, with people around the world wanting to get their hands on the cool gadget. Now, the product is finally available to purchase through a couple of crowdfunding campaigns, with one set up on Kibidango for domestic customers in Japan and another, on Kickstarter, for overseas customers.

Nekojita Fufu is available in three colours — milk, chocolate and sakura — and can be purchased for a discounted price of 4,500 yen (US$31.60) for Japanese customers on Kibidango, or 3,550 yen for overseas customers on Kickstarter. While these are the starting prices for the gadget, there are other tiers available, including two and three-set options, but it’s proven to be so popular that some tiers have already sold out.

Produced on an all-or-nothing basis, the crowdfunding campaigns have already smashed their target goals so you’ll definitely be receiving the item if you order it. However, the campaign on Kibidango ends on 29 May and Kickstarter on 30 May so you’ll want to get in before then to receive your little fufu helper, who’s made by the same company that brought us Qoobo, the robot “cat” with a moving tail.

Source, images: Press release
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