Coffee Vs. Tea — Which One Has More Caffeine?

Ah, the ol’ coffee vs. tea debate. While it’s not hard to guess which one we’d always choose ;), we can understand the conundrum people face when debating which caffeinated beverage is the one for them. “Will this make me jittery?” “Does one give me a more focused buzz?” These are all valid questions when it comes to considering which one (at any given moment) is the right one.

To fully understand, we start at the beginning, the conception of both cups: the tea leaf and the coffee bean. Tea leaves actually have more caffeine than coffee beans do. So, before either are brewed, you’d actually consume more caffeine by ingesting the tea leaf, (if you were eating tea leaves or eating coffee beans — how wild would that be?) However, once brewed, tea becomes a lot more watered down than coffee does, and in the final showdown of cup of tea vs. cup of coffee: coffee’s caffeine content comes out to be much higher.

If you think about it, it makes sense. Coffee is simply the stronger beverage. Consider the color of a cup of tea vs. the color of a cup of coffee. A cup of brewed coffee is a lot darker (a lot more concentrated) than a cup of steeped tea. For a full breakdown of each varying beverage’s caffeine content, see below:

• 1 cup of coffee 95-200 milligrams of caffeine
• 1 cup of black tea 25-48 milligrams of caffeine
• 1 cup of green tea 25-29 milligrams of caffeine

And, there ya have it. Regardless of which is your usual cup of tea (it was too easy), both beverages do contain caffeine, and therefore, should be consumed with the understanding that they’ll both give you a burst of energy (just to varying degrees). We support whatever caffeinated cups you guys are drinking, and we’re totally unbiased here, but we’re sticking to coffee.