Which coffee bean has more caffeine in it?

by alice monroe
(washington)


QUESTION:

Can you tell me which coffee bean has more caffeine in it?


ANSWER:

Good question – because most people assume that all coffee beans contain the same amount of caffeine.

Not so.

For instance, Guatemala Antigua contains 1.32% caffeine.

While Mocha Mattari (Yemen) contains 1.01% caffeine.

And it’s not just the coffee beans that make a difference. Contrary to what people assume and believe, drip coffee contains more caffeine than espresso.

You’ll find a list of coffee beans and their caffeine content on our caffeine in coffee page.



Comments for Which coffee bean has more caffeine in it?

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Sep 02, 2010
 It is volume versus concentration
by: Anonymous

The second comment is just misguided:
1 shot of expresso is equivalent to 1/2 cup of coffee in caffeine content. That means there is a higher concentration of caffeine in expresso, but you'd have to drink two expresso shots to get as much caffeine as 1 cup of coffee.

This really a question of what volume of coffee or expresso do you drink. You can't argue that expresso has more caffeine than a cup of coffee, that's just not true...
May 19, 2010
 More caffeine by volume
by: Anonymous

Volume is the key word. The previous commenter mentioned that a 1oz serving of espresso has as much caffeine as 4oz of drip coffee, making it 4X as potent. By volume, espresso has more caffeine than brewed coffee. However, a serving of espresso is roughly 1 fluid oz. Whereas a standard cup o' joe is (or used to be) 6oz, but it's probably more likely that people are buying 12oz servings or more.

So it stands, using serving size as a metric, that drip coffee does contain more caffeine.
Apr 15, 2010
 espresso does have more caffeine
by: Anonymous

umm actually espresso does have more caffeine than drip coffee. one shot of espresso (which is about an ounce) has as much caffeine content as half a cup of coffee. a cup of coffee is usually considered to be 8 ounces. that said, this means a shot (1 ounce) of espresso has the same amount of caffeine as half a cup (4 ounces) of coffee. so espresso has 4x the amount of caffeine. this is due to the deeper extraction method of the coffee.

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