Does espresso have more caffeine than coffee?
Short answerSort of
Sort of. Ounce for ounce, espresso has about five times the caffeine of drip coffee. But a shot is only about 1 oz, so a single espresso has about 63 mg and an 8 oz cup of drip coffee about 95. It takes a double, about 126 mg, to beat the mug.
What we’d do
If you want an afternoon coffee that’s easy on your night, make it a single espresso. It’s one of the smallest real coffees you can order, and for an 11pm bedtime you can have it as late as 7pm. Count the shots, though. A double is a different drink, and so is a big milky drink with two or three shots in it.
If you remember three things
- Per ounce, espresso wins by about five to one. Espresso has 212 mg per 100 g, against 40 for brewed coffee.
- Per drink, the mug wins. An 8 oz drip coffee has about 95 mg, against 63 in a single shot.
- Two shots pass the mug. A double is about 126 mg.
Why people believe it
Espresso tastes like the strong one. It’s thick, dark and bitter, it comes in a tiny cup, and people drink it standing up when they need to wake up fast. Everything about it says more caffeine.
The taste is telling you about strength, how much is packed into each sip. What your body counts is the total, strength times how much you drink. A teaspoon of soy sauce is far saltier than a bowl of soup, and the bowl can still hold more salt.
What the numbers say
USDA’s lab values put restaurant espresso at 212 mg of caffeine per 100 g and brewed coffee at 40. A 1 oz shot weighs about 29.6 g, so it holds about 63 mg. An 8 oz cup of coffee weighs about 237 g and holds about 95.
| Drink | Size | Caffeine | One at 3pm leaves at 11pm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decaf espresso | 1 shot | 3 to 16 mg | Under 6 mg |
| Espresso | 1 shot | 63 mg | 23 mg |
| Brewed coffee | 8 oz | 95 mg | 35 mg |
| Espresso, double | 2 shots | 126 mg | 46 mg |
| Brewed coffee | 12 oz | 142 mg | 52 mg |
| Brewed coffee | 16 oz | 190 mg | 70 mg |
The last column is on a 5 hour half-life. For an 11pm bedtime, a single espresso can come as late as 7pm, an 8 oz coffee by about 4pm and a double by about 2pm.
The best case for it
The USDA number is a lab average for a 1 oz shot. A shop’s shot can be bigger or stronger, and if your latte or cappuccino has two shots in it, it’s about 126 mg, more than the mug. Coffee-shop drinks vary a lot in general. In a 2003 lab test, coffee-shop coffees ran from 58 to 259 mg a serving, and one drink from the same shop measured 259 to 564 mg on six days in a row.
Decaf espresso isn’t zero either. In a 2006 lab test, one chain’s decaf espresso held 3 to 16 mg a shot.
More detail: strength against size
By USDA’s numbers, an 8 oz cup of drip is about 237 g of coffee at 40 mg per 100 g. A shot is about 29.6 g at 212 mg per 100 g. The shot is about 5.3 times stronger and about an eighth of the size, so it ends up with about two thirds of the mug’s caffeine. A 16 oz drip coffee, at about 190 mg, has as much as three single shots.
3 sources
- USDA FoodData Central, restaurant-prepared espresso (FDC 171891) and brewed coffee (FDC 171890), SR Legacyfdc.nal.usda.gov
- McCusker RR, Goldberger BA, Cone EJ, Caffeine content of specialty coffees, Journal of Analytical Toxicology, 2003pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- McCusker RR and others, Caffeine content of decaffeinated coffee, Journal of Analytical Toxicology, 2006pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
