Caffeine in Coffee vs. Tea
Alice Hecht
Hi,
My friend and I are having a disagreement on the amount of caffeine in coffee
versus tea. She says that tea has more caffeine than coffee and I say
coffee has more caffeine than tea. Who's right and if you know, can you
give the caffeine amounts?
Thanks,
Alice
P.s. e-mail would be appreciated.
john hopper
> My friend and I are having a disagreement on the amount of caffeine in coffee
> versus tea. She says that tea has more caffeine than coffee and I say
> coffee has more caffeine than tea. Who's right and if you know, can you
> give the caffeine amounts?
A long time ago I had a work study job in the reference dept of our college
library and during one boring evening, I actually looked this up (it was the
beginning of the semester after all and there wasn't a whole lot of action).
Tea leaves have more caffeine than coffee beans, but the brewing process
is more effective at extracting caffeine from coffee than from tea. So,
even though technically tea has more caffeine, it all stays in the leaves.
I can't remember all the details of the numbers, but a cup of tea ended up
with about 2/3 the amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee for "normal" brewing
times of each (don't know how long that was).
If I remember right, I eventually found this in a US Govt. report on the
health effects of caffeine. You might call your local reference librarian if
you really need all the numbers.
--
John Hopper Lamont-O-Sphere II "Keeping what matters out of sight."
PHONE: 914-365-8627
FAX: 914-365-0718
EMAIL: j...@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu
john hopper
library and during one boring evening, I actually looked this up (it was the
beginning of the semester after all and there wasn't a whole lot of action).
Tea leaves have more caffeine than coffee beans, but the brewing process
is more effective at extracting caffeine from coffee than from tea. So,
even though technically tea has more caffeine, it all stays in the leaves.
I can't remember all the details of the numbers, but a cup of tea ended up
with about 2/3 the amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee for "normal" brewing
times of each (don't know how long that was).
If I remember right, I eventually found this in a US Govt. report on the
health effects of caffeine. You might call your local reference librarian if
you really need all the numbers.
---
Shankar Bhattacharyya
>A long time ago I had a work study job in the reference dept of our college
>library and during one boring evening, I actually looked this up (it was the
>beginning of the semester after all and there wasn't a whole lot of action).
>
>Tea leaves have more caffeine than coffee beans, but the brewing process
>is more effective at extracting caffeine from coffee than from tea. So,
>even though technically tea has more caffeine, it all stays in the leaves.
>
>I can't remember all the details of the numbers, but a cup of tea ended up
>with about 2/3 the amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee for "normal" brewing
>times of each (don't know how long that was).
Just by the way, you need to know something about how the caffeine content
of tea and coffee samples was measured in order to make sense of
comparisons.
That said, John is right. On average, tea leaves contain more caffeine than
do coffee beans, but extraction from coffee is much more efficient. I would
like to be certain that I don't confound that fact by all this nerdy
obsessiveness. But I am mildly amused by my own experience of learning
things by unnecessarily messy means, at least if it happened a while ago.
More recent examples are less entertaining. I learned this lesson several
years ago. A colleague learned it about two weeks ago, so it has been
brought to the foreground of my memory.
There are a variety of ways to extract caffeine from tea and coffee, in the
situation where you want all of it to be extracted. Exhaustive extraction
is done by digesting the sample with a little calcium hydroxide, but this
is drastic enough that some of the caffeine gets destroyed in the process.
So the somewhat bizarre situation is that nobody actually knows exactly how
much caffeine there is in any natural source. In fact, there are situations
where you can show that you have left some caffeine behind (by repeating
the extraction of the leaves or the beans) and yet get a higher number than
by using extraction methods that leave no caffeine behind. It can be very
confusing when you first do caffeine extractions, and a rapid lesson in
humility. And a good lesson in learning the literature before you start
messing with the procedures. It's been known for a long time, and is
documented in the standard methods of analysis of the AOAC, the standard
compilation of analytical methods for foods and beverages, but everyone
I know who knows this has learnt this from experience, not from the less
painful process of reading it in the books. I did this the hard way, too.
I don't want to confuse the hell out of people. You can, of course, compare
things on an identical-procedures basis, and the information in the
literature is entirely usable, but those of us who deal with determination
of caffeine in real life have developed some paranoia as to what a specific
study means. We see a claim of caffeine content, and we promptly want to
see what extraction technique was used.
This leads to some odd problems. When a coffee or tea supplier says, "97%
decaffeinated," what does this claim mean? Does this mean that 97% of the
caffeine has been removed? Does this mean that the decaffeinated product
provides 3% of the caffeine in the brewed product? Usually this means the
latter, which is the functionally interesting information, but you do have
to check.
Of course, this has very little impact on the consumer. But, to people who
do analytical chemistry of food, it makes for entertaining arguments. So
we're nerdy people. Sue us.
- Shankar
Bob Jernigan
|> ... edifying discourse deleted...
|> This leads to some odd problems. When a coffee or tea supplier says, "97%
|> decaffeinated," what does this claim mean? Does this mean that 97% of the
|> caffeine has been removed? Does this mean that the decaffeinated product
|> provides 3% of the caffeine in the brewed product? Usually this means the
|> latter, which is the functionally interesting information, but you do have
|> to check.
|> - Shankar
What does it mean to "provide 3% of the caffeine in the brewed product"?
What happened to the rest? Was some extracted? Chemically altered?
Transmorgrified into a carcenogin perhaps?
bob
Daniel Hobbs
the caffeine content of coffee. It was marketed by one of the
herbal tea companies (Celestial Seasonings or one of those), and
named (appropriately) "Morning Thunder". The package showed a
buffalo stampede. The tea tasted very "grainy", and was good, but
definitely strong. I haven't seen it for awhile.
Dan
David D Auerbach
>A long time ago I had a work study job in the reference dept of our college
>library and during one boring evening, I actually looked this up (it was the
>beginning of the semester after all and there wasn't a whole lot of action).
>Tea leaves have more caffeine than coffee beans, but the brewing process
>is more effective at extracting caffeine from coffee than from tea. So,
>even though technically tea has more caffeine, it all stays in the leaves.
>I can't remember all the details of the numbers, but a cup of tea ended up
>with about 2/3 the amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee for "normal" brewing
>times of each (don't know how long that was).
>If I remember right, I eventually found this in a US Govt. report on the
>health effects of caffeine. You might call your local reference librarian if
>you really need all the numbers.
The question is a little ill-formed since the amount of caffeine in coffee
depends upon a) the bean, b) the degree of roast and c) the brewing method.
a) may be the most critical since robusta beans have twice the caffeine of
arabica. This is one of the nice nutritional happenstances, like the
healthfulness of olive oil, because robusta beans are used in cheap
coffee, and for manufacturing instant "coffee". The beans from specialty
roasters (you know, the ones sitting going stale in big glass canisters in
gourmet stores) are supposed to be arabica varieties.
b) Dark roasts will have somewhat less caffeine that light.
c) I don't know the literature here, but espresso is supposed to have
somewhat less caffeine due the rapidity of the extraction.
john hopper
There's a South American tea/coffee like drink called Mata? or something like
that. I can't remember for sure anymore, but I think that was the main substance
in Morning Thunder Tea. I don't know the full story about this stuff, but it's
packed with caffeine and quite tasty. Can anyone provide more info about this
(or even know what I'm talking about). A couple years ago I tried to buy some
when I was in Chile, but the smallest quantity I could find was a 25lb bag.
---
John Hopper L-DCCC (Lamont-Doherty Crystal Conservation Center)
Jack L-DCCC (Lamont-Doherty Canine Care Center)
Michael Tobis
I am not sure of the details, but I think it is dissolved in carbonated
water, or "pure water and the natural effervescence that makes water
sparkle" as a TV commercial had it. Water process decaf is at least as
harmless as regular coffee.
mt
Shankar Bhattacharyya
attributions remain understandable.
In article <1993Feb15.0...@daffy.cs.wisc.edu> to...@skool.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
>In article <1993Feb12....@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>, je...@visual1.jhuapl.edu (Bob Jernigan) writes:
>|> In article <36...@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU>, sbha...@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU (Shankar Bhattacharyya) writes:
SB:
>|> |> This leads to some odd problems. When a coffee or tea supplier says, "97%
>|> |> decaffeinated," what does this claim mean? Does this mean that 97% of the
>|> |> caffeine has been removed? Does this mean that the decaffeinated product
>|> |> provides 3% of the caffeine in the brewed product? Usually this means the
>|> |> latter, which is the functionally interesting information, but you do
>|> |> have to check.
BJ:
>|> What does it mean to "provide 3% of the caffeine in the brewed product"?
>|> What happened to the rest? Was some extracted? Chemically altered?
>|> Transmorgrified into a carcenogin perhaps?
The rest was extracted.
Suppose you have a tea (or coffee), dry, as yet unbrewed, which contains
X mg caffeine per gram, and which, on brewing by some standardized
procedure, produces a cup of tea (or coffee) of some specific volume V,
containing Y mg caffeine.
Suppose you decaffeinate the tea (or coffee).
By "97% of the caffeine has been removed" I mean that the decaffeinated dry
product contains 0.03 * X mg caffeine per gram.
By the way, neither that X, nor the residual 0.03 * X is measurable with
metaphysical certainty, which was what I wrote about in my earlier post.
By "provide 3% of the caffeine in the brewed product" I mean that if the
decaffeinated product is brewed exactly as the undecaffeinated original,
a volume V of brewed product will contain 0.03 * Y mg of caffeine.
Both the Y, and the 0.03 * Y are, within the usual scientific sense,
measurable with pretty much metaphysical certainty.
The two are not the same thing, by the way, mostly because it is possible
to measure exactly for the second claim, but it is not possible to do so
for the first. And, if you could, it is not guaranteeable that the two
situations would imply each another.
In most cases people making a claim of decaffeination mean the second
claim.
MT:
>I am not sure of the details, but I think it is dissolved in carbonated
>water, or "pure water and the natural effervescence that makes water
>sparkle" as a TV commercial had it. Water process decaf is at least as
>harmless as regular coffee.
I don't know how decaffeinated coffee is produced by the water extraction
process. I suspect it takes a lot of control.
Older techniques used ethyl acetate or methylene chloride to extract the
caffeine. Both are very effective, but they also remove a fair amount of
the flavour components.
Further, FDA has decided that methylene chloride is carcinogenic, and
requires that no more than so much be left behind. Actually, that was a
long time ago, and I don't know if they still allow methylene chloride to
be used for this purpose. Methylene chloride may well be a low level
carcinogen, but it is not high on my list of things to worry about.
Ethyl acetate is fairly innocuous, at least at the levels at which you
find it in decaffeinated tea or coffee. It occurs in various flavours and
such, and occurs in small amounts in nature, in various foods, though I
recall no specifics on that subject.
- Shankar
Daniel Rosenblum
dan...@sequent.com (Daniel Hobbs) writes:
>BTW: There's a tea that has (I forget) something like 10 to 50 times
>the caffeine content of coffee. It was marketed by one of the
>herbal tea companies (Celestial Seasonings or one of those), and
>named (appropriately) "Morning Thunder". . . .
Yes, it was "Morning Thunder" and was marketed by Celestial
Seasonings. I think it still is. It isn't a tea, in the
technical sense of something made from the tea plant, but
an herb "tea". I think the plant that gives Morning Thunder
its kick is a South American plant; the name escapes me, but
something like mate, with an accent on the "e", is close.
And yes, it packs quite a wallop to a caffeine-sensitive
person like me.
--
Daniel M. Rosenblum, Assistant Professor, Quantitative Studies Area,
Graduate School of Management, Rutgers University (Newark Campus)
ROSE...@DRACO.RUTGERS.EDU ROSE...@ZODIAC.BITnet
d...@andromeda.rutgers.edu ...!rutgers!andromeda.rutgers.edu!dmr
Andre Robotewskyj
I think everyone has missed a rather important point. Tea contains more
caffeine than coffee beans per unit weight. However, the amount of
tea leaves (by weight) added to a given volume water is far less
then the amount of beans (by weight) added to an equivalent amount water.
This difference is such that although tea contains more caffeine than
coffee beans per weight, a given volume of brewed tea contains less
caffeine than an equivalent volume coffee. This was actually the
point of an organic chem lab here at school- although rather than
use "water extraction" we used "organic solvent" extraction and hence
obtained reasonably good yeilds as a percentage total caffeine in
both cases.
Andre
.
Michael Sierchio
ar...@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>I think everyone has missed a rather important point. Tea contains more
>caffeine than coffee beans per unit weight. However, the amount of
>tea leaves (by weight) added to a given volume water is far less
>then the amount of beans (by weight) added to an equivalent amount water.
Irrelevant. The real facts are that the caffeine in tea is complexed
in such a way that it has a drastically different effect -- it is not
available as "caffeine"
--
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Michael Sierchio 1563 Solano Avenue, Suite 123 |
| ku...@netcom.com Berkeley, CA 94707-2116 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Jerry Gaiser
> In <1993Feb12.2...@sequent.com>
> dan...@sequent.com (Daniel Hobbs) writes:
>
> >BTW: There's a tea that has (I forget) something like 10 to 50 times
> >the caffeine content of coffee. It was marketed by one of the
> >herbal tea companies (Celestial Seasonings or one of those), and
> >named (appropriately) "Morning Thunder". . . .
>
> Yes, it was "Morning Thunder" and was marketed by Celestial
> Seasonings. I think it still is. It isn't a tea, in the
> technical sense of something made from the tea plant, but
> an herb "tea". I think the plant that gives Morning Thunder
> its kick is a South American plant; the name escapes me, but
> something like mate, with an accent on the "e", is close.
> And yes, it packs quite a wallop to a caffeine-sensitive
> person like me.
Morning Thunder is still sold by Celestial Seasonsings and actually it
is a black tea with mate' mixed in.
--
Jerry Gaiser (jer...@jaiser.rain.com) (voice) 503-359-4017
Fidonet 1:105/380 (bbs) 503-359-5111
PBBS n7...@n7pwf.or.usa.na
.. I read banned books ..
Shankar Bhattacharyya
>In article <1993Feb18....@midway.uchicago.edu>
> ar...@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>>I think everyone has missed a rather important point. Tea contains more
>>caffeine than coffee beans per unit weight. However, the amount of
>>tea leaves (by weight) added to a given volume water is far less
>>then the amount of beans (by weight) added to an equivalent amount water.
>Irrelevant. The real facts are that the caffeine in tea is complexed
>in such a way that it has a drastically different effect -- it is not
>available as "caffeine"
I assume that you don't intend that as a blanket claim? The 40 to 60 mg
or so of caffeine that winds up in a cup of brewed tea is easily
identifiable as free caffeine.
The dust produced during the handling of tea leaves is a major commercial
source of free caffeine. Of course, I don't have any idea how the
commercial extraction is done.
Meanwhile, perhaps you would elaborate on how the caffeine in tea is
complexed? The Merck Index simply states that dry tea leaves contain
1.5 - 3.5% caffeine. That's quite a high amount, by the way, for an
alkaloid material in a plant.
- Shankar
Michael Sierchio
sbha...@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU (Shankar Bhattacharyya) writes:
>I assume that you don't intend that as a blanket claim? The 40 to 60 mg
>or so of caffeine that winds up in a cup of brewed tea is easily
>identifiable as free caffeine.
right...
>
>The dust produced during the handling of tea leaves is a major commercial
>source of free caffeine. Of course, I don't have any idea how the
>commercial extraction is done.
>
>Meanwhile, perhaps you would elaborate on how the caffeine in tea is
>complexed? The Merck Index simply states that dry tea leaves contain
>1.5 - 3.5% caffeine. That's quite a high amount, by the way, for an
>alkaloid material in a plant.
Ancient memory claims that it is complexed with theobromine, and that
the primary neuro-active product in tea is theophylline -- this
accounts for tea's different effects from coffee -- it is, for one
thing, a more effective diuretic.
Of course, pale ink is better than the best memory... I spent a
good deal of time on the tea estates in the Western Ghats, but that
hardly makes me an expert on tea -- I was chasing tigers at the time...
Mike Judson
the following numbers are from memory:
product caffeine (mg)
colas 5
tea 15
coffee 50
--
You know what would make a good story? Something about a clown
who makes people happy, but inside he's real sad. Also, he has
severe diarrhea.
Jack Handy
Ilana Stern
so much speculation and half-remembered figures posted since then, that
I guess the rest of r.f.c is interested. This article was originally
posted in rec.food.drink by IO1...@MAINE.MAINE.EDU in December 1992.
--cut here--
This data is old (1985), but maybe it still applies. Btw, anyone
know what the caffine content is for Moxie soda?
** INFO: CAFFINE in drinks
MILLIGRAMS CAFFEINE
ITEM AVERAGE RANGE
Coffee (5-oz. cup)
Brewed, drip method 115 60-180
Brewed, percolator 80 40-170
Instant 65 30-120
Decaffeinated, brewed 3 2-5
Decaffeinated, instant 2 1-5
Tea (5-oz. cup)
Brewed, major U.S. brands 40 20-90
Brewed, imported brands 60 25-110
Instant 30 25-50
Iced (12-oz. glass) 70 67-76
Cocoa beverage (5-oz. cup) 4 2-20
Chocolate milk beverage (8 oz.) 5 2-7
Milk chocolate (1 oz.) 6 1-15
Dark chocolate, semi sweet (1 oz.) 20 5-35
Baker's chocolate (1 oz.) 26 26
Chocolate-flovored syrup (1 oz.) 4 4
SOFT DRINKS
MILLIGRAMS CAFFEINE
BRAND (12-oz. serving)
Sugar-Free Mr. PIBB 58.8
Mountain Dew 54.0
Mello Yello 52.8
TAB 46.8
Coca-Cola 45.6
Diet Coke 45.6
Shasta Cola 44.4
Shasta Cherry Cola 44.4
Shasta Diet Cola 44.4
Mr. PIBB 40.8
Dr. Pepper 39.6
Diet Dr. Pepper 39.6
Big Red 38.4
Sugar Free Big Red 38.4
Pepsi-Cola 38.4
Aspen 36.0
Diet Pepsi 36.0
Pepsi Light 36.0
RC Cola 36.0
Diet Rite 36.0
Kick 31.2
Canada Dry Jamaica Cola 30.0
Canada Dry Diet Cola 1.2
Source:
"The Latest Caffeine Scorecard"
HHS Publication No. 84-2184
U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
Dated 1985, Reprinted from March, 1984
--
/\ "I'm only a human girl person. I ain't always perfect."--Rambling Rose
\_][ <--NCAR Ilana Stern dod#009 r.b. cliff swallow il...@ncar.ucar.edu
\______________________________________________________________________
L.H....@lut.ac.uk
Does any one out there know how much caffeine there is in coca cola
in relation to that of coffee,
a friend of mine sons are at battle with their school teacher who says there
is alot more caffeine in coca cola than coffee and will not allow
the school kids to have their rental on the coca cola machine renewed,
any facts we can arm the kids with would be welcome
thanks in advance
Lynda
Catherine Stanton
>a friend of mine sons are at battle with their school teacher who says there
>is alot more caffeine in coca cola than coffee and will not allow
>the school kids to have their rental on the coca cola machine renewed,
>
students can't GET a decent education. :-) If only the teachers
knew that I NEEDED all the sugar and caffeine I could get to stay awake
during their classes... I would have been so much more alert and probably
a better student had I had an ice cold can of coke next to me in every
class...well my teeth woulda rotted out, but boy I'd have made straight
A's! :)
Cat
_/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ | Catherine E. Stanton
_/ _/ _/ _/ | sta...@athena.cs.uga.edu
_/ _/_/_/_/ _/ | "Don't Shoot! Je suis
_/ _/ _/ _/ | Canadien!"
_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ | -- dsc3jfs