Understanding your coffee

The caffeine content case

The amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee can vary greatly, depending on many factors. We’ll explore a few ideas that will help you to understand a little more about the presence of caffeine in coffee.

If you ask 10 people, most will agree that espresso has more caffeine than regular drip coffee. But are they correct? Let’s see, a typical 8-ounce cup of drip coffee ranges between 65-120mg of caffeine.  Why this large range? Factors such as brew and dwell time, water temperature, grind and roast level, bean species and blends greatly affect final caffeine extraction. If you compare it to a typical espresso, ranging from 30-50mg of caffeine per ounce, the difference is significant.

Then a cup of drip coffee has two to four times more than espresso—but we are comparing apples to oranges. To accurately make a comparison, we need to compare concentrations in terms of caffeine per volume. So for drip coffee we end up with 8-15mg per ounce, whereas in espresso, we get 30-50mg per ounce

Conclusion: Drip coffee contains more caffeine than espresso, due to its larger serving size. But when viewed from volume perspective, espresso has more caffeine per ounce. Soluble coffee generally contains less caffeine than roast and ground coffee, but is usually consumed in greater volume.