Caffeine in Tea: How Much Each Type Has and What Changes It

Many charts of caffeine in tea rank the types by colour, with black tea at the top and white tea at the bottom. Measure what each gram of leaf releases into the cup and that ranking almost disappears. In a 2016 lab analysis of 37 teas, a gram of green, white, black or oolong leaf released about 16 to 19 mg of caffeine. That is roughly 41 to 48 per 250 ml cup from 2.5 g of leaf, so four types the charts place far apart land within about 7 mg.

The cup depends on which part of the plant was picked, how the bushes were grown and how it is brewed. Gyokuro and sencha are both Japanese green teas, yet Japan's food tables give gyokuro eight times the caffeine of sencha per 100 ml. Gyokuro is shade-grown, and it is made with the same 10 g of leaf in about a seventh of the water.

In this guide

• The short answer: the leaf and the brew matter more than the type
• How much caffeine is in a cup of tea
• Caffeine by tea type
• What decides caffeine in the leaf
• Does processing change caffeine?
• How brewing changes the caffeine in your cup
• Tea vs coffee caffeine
• Decaf and caffeine-free tea
• How much caffeine a day
• Where to start
• Frequently asked questions

The short answer: the leaf and the brew matter more than the type

By the per-gram figures, a cup of tea holds about 40 to 50 mg, roughly half a mug of coffee. In a 2008 study of 20 commercial teas, mugs of 180 to 240 ml (6 to 8 oz) ranged from 14 to 61 mg depending on the tea and the brew. Caffeine in tea depends more on the leaf and the brew than on the type of tea. The coffee figure, about 96 mg for a 240 ml mug, comes from the USDA food database.

The authors found "no observable trend in caffeine concentration due to the variety of tea". Green tea does not consistently beat black tea, and no type is always the lowest. Buds, shaded bushes, more leaf, hotter water and a longer steep all push a cup up, while cold water and decaf leaf bring it down. Of these, only the brew is easy to change at home.

A tea that drinks light is often light because of how it is brewed. Few leaves are low by nature, mainly older leaf, and the data on stems point both ways. For teas whose leaf and growing push caffeine up, see our high-caffeine teas.

How much caffeine is in a cup of tea

Scaled from one study's per-gram means, the four main types give about 41 to 48 mg per cup. Teas compare fairly only when they were measured the same way, so each column of the table below keeps to one basis. The first column is what a gram of each leaf released in the 2016 analysis, with 1 g of leaf in 100 ml of water at 80 °C for 3 minutes. The second scales that up to a 250 ml cup made with 2.5 g, the dose our product pages give for one cup, made the same way.

The second column is our calculation: it multiplies the study's averages by 2.5, because 2.5 g of leaf in 250 ml keeps the same ratio of leaf to water as the study's 1 g in 100 ml. Hotter water or more time gives more, and cooler water or less time gives less.

Every figure is a mean, and a single tea can sit far from it, as the first row shows. The table also has gaps: no study here gives a per-gram figure for yellow tea or pu-erh, none measured a brewed cup of hojicha, and two studies comparing GABA teas with other teas, Hinton's in 2022 and Sobolev's in 2021, point opposite ways.

Caffeine by tea type

Each type of tea spans a wide range, and leaf, heat and time move every one of them. The clearest examples here are shade and the amount of leaf for green tea, buds for white and black, and water temperature for oolong. For how the six types are made, start with our guide to the types of tea.

Caffeine in green tea, from sencha to gyokuro

Green tea runs from a mild sencha to gyokuro, the strongest cup in this guide. An ordinary green leaf released about 16 mg per gram in the 2016 analysis, or about 41 per cup, level with the other types. Japan's official figures, quoted in a caffeine factsheet from the Food Safety Commission of Japan, put sencha at 20 mg per 100 ml.

Gyokuro reaches 160 mg per 100 ml in the same tables, partly because of how it is made, as the section on leaf and water below explains. Its bushes are also covered before picking, and shading raises the caffeine in the leaf. For a side-by-side, read how gyokuro, sencha and matcha differ.

Caffeine in black tea

Black tea is only slightly stronger than green tea when both are made the same way. In the per-gram analysis, black leaf released about 18 mg of caffeine against 16 for green, or roughly 44 against 41 per cup. Oxidation, the step that turns the leaf dark, does not add caffeine in any consistent way. When researchers in Chongqing made green and black tea from the same fresh leaves, the difference in caffeine was not significant.

The leaf it starts from matters more. Teas made mostly from buds lean higher, since buds hold more caffeine than older leaves. Golden Needles is one such tea.

Caffeine in white tea, not the low-caffeine choice

A cup of white tea is not reliably lighter than a cup of green tea. White leaf released about 17 per gram in the same analysis, about 42 per cup, against 16 and 41 for green tea. Its gentle reputation holds only for a short, cool brew.

In a 2007 comparison of about 30 pairs of white and green tea from the same area, Hilal's team found that white teas made mostly from buds can hold more caffeine than the green tea. Silver Needles is made only from buds, which points it toward the stronger end, though it was not part of any study here. Our white tea guide covers its styles.

Caffeine in oolong

Per gram of leaf, oolong released the most caffeine of the four main types in the 2016 analysis. Its leaf gave about 19 per gram, roughly 48 per cup. In a short, cool infusion the order changes: it gave the lightest cup of all six types in the 2025 study of 68 teas.

Its styles range from green and fresh to dark and heavily roasted, and a darker roast does not take the caffeine away (more on that under roasting below). How the styles are made is in our oolong guide.

Caffeine in yellow tea

After a short infusion at 80 °C, yellow tea gave about as much caffeine as black tea. The 2025 Istanbul study is the one study here that tested all six types the same way. Given a long, hot infusion, yellow tea made the strongest cup of any type. There is no per-gram figure for it. Bright Matter is made from buds, which hold more caffeine than older leaves, so it likely leans to the stronger end of yellow tea, though no study here measured it.

Caffeine in pu-erh, raw and ripe

Pu-erh brewed gently comes out close to black tea, and ripe pu-erh is no lighter than raw. Roda's group found "similar caffeine content" in raw (sheng) and ripe (shu) pu-erh in a 2019 comparison, though the sample was small.

Hidden Track '23 is a sheng, and our guide to sheng vs shu explains how the two styles are made.

Caffeine in matcha, the whole leaf in the cup

Matcha delivers all of the leaf's caffeine, because the powder is whisked into water and drunk whole. The Japanese figures put the powder at 32 mg per gram. A bowl of 1.5 g whisked into 70 ml carries about 48 mg, and a latte made with 2 g about 64.

That bowl sits inside the usual range for a mug of tea, but it is concentrated: the caffeine of an ordinary mug arrives in about 70 ml. The powder comes from shaded leaf, and shade raises L-theanine, an amino acid, as well as caffeine.

Tokusei Matcha, a stone-milled powder from Uji, is the one our latte recipe is built on.

What decides caffeine in the leaf

The part of the shoot picked moves leaf caffeine most, and shade raises it reliably. Season and plant variety shift it too, less predictably. The figures here are what the leaf holds on the bush, in milligrams per gram of dry leaf. They run higher than the table's because a cup draws out only part of it.

Buds and young leaves hold more

Buds and the youngest leaves are among the richest parts of the shoot, and older leaves hold less. That is why bud teas such as Golden Needles and Silver Needles lean strong. In one Indian garden sampled across four seasons, the bud with its first two leaves held 20.6 to 44.4 mg of caffeine in a gram of dry leaf, according to a study of three cultivars grown there. The sixth leaf down held 7.5 to 23.4.

Stems are less clear. The Kochi Prefecture Tea Experiment Station in Japan gives stem tea an index of 77, where first-flush tea is 100, but Paiva's group, working in one Azores garden in 2020, found more caffeine in the stem than in the bud or the leaves.

Harvest season

Season moves caffeine too, and one Indian study found the most in leaf picked in July. In that Indian garden, young shoots of one cultivar held 34.6 mg per gram of dry leaf in July and 20.6 in December. Late-autumn and winter leaf came out lowest in the studies that tracked it, so a winter harvest tends toward a lighter cup. The first and second flush are less settled: the 2025 report from Numazu College found the second flush stronger, while the Kochi station measured the first higher.

Wild Winter Buds is a white tea of ya bao, winter buds from a separate variety of the tea plant. It is nearly caffeine-free.

Shade-grown tea

Shade-grown teas such as gyokuro and matcha carry extra caffeine, because covering the bushes raises it in the leaf. In a 2014 trial in China, researchers led by Zhang found that ten days under about 80% shade lifted caffeine by 12% under black net and by 15% under film. Japan's national agriculture research body, NARO, reports that shading raises L-theanine along with caffeine.

The plant and where it grows

Plant variety shifts the average caffeine, yet a variety name cannot promise a strong or a light cup. The ranges overlap too widely. Assam-type plants grown in Japan came out highest on average in a 1994 survey by Takeda at Japan's national tea institute, while in the Indian garden a China-type clone was the highest of the three. Altitude, old trees and organic growing show no reliable direction in the studies behind this guide.

Does processing change caffeine?

Oxidising and roasting move the caffeine of the same leaf only a little, and ageing shows no clear change. The one large swing comes from microbes during fermentation, and even that can go either way.

Green, oolong and black from the same leaf

Whether a leaf is made into any of these three makes little difference to its caffeine. When nine Taiwanese teas were followed through processing, the "changes did not exceed 20%", and they had no link to how far the leaf was oxidised.

GABA tea, made by holding fresh leaf without oxygen, keeps its caffeine as well, with "little changes" on the same leaf in a 1990 Japanese test by Hakamata. Our GABA tea guide explains the process.

Roasting, and why hojicha is a special case

Roasting takes off only a little caffeine, and only from green tea roasted deep. The Kochi Prefecture Tea Experiment Station roasted the same leaf two ways: a light roast left it almost untouched, and a deep roast took off 6 to 13%.

Hojicha is a roasted Japanese green tea, and a 2024 survey of export hojichas by the Japan Tea Central Council, an industry body, found it lost about a tenth of its caffeine in roasting, on average. Our Hojicha is a low-caffeine tea; made with cold water, it gives an even lighter evening cup.

Roasted oolongs show no such drop. When Liu's team roasted Wuyi teas to three levels in 2021, the caffeine stayed much the same. In 2022, Gao and colleagues found no significant difference between a deep-baked Tie Guan Yin and its unbaked form. For taste and grades, see our hojicha comparison.

Fermentation and ageing

Fermentation by microbes can raise caffeine or lower it, while years of storage do not seem to change it. In Zhou's 2019 lab trial, one fungus broke most of the caffeine down and other fungi raised it. It went up in the simulated pile for ripe pu-erh that Feng and Liu described in 2013.

White tea stored for 1, 3 and 5 years showed no significant change in a 2019 study from Xu's team. Hong's 2021 study found the same for a tea aged from 1 to 25 years. Both compared teas from different years, so the evidence is thin.

How brewing changes the caffeine in your cup

The same leaf can give a light cup or a strong one, depending on how it is made. Leaf, water temperature and time often move a cup more than its type does.

In the 2025 study of 68 teas, a cup made for 2 minutes at 80 °C, with 2 g of leaf in 200 ml, gave black tea about 14 mg, yellow about 14, pu-erh about 13, green about 11, white about 6 and oolong about 4. White tea's light reputation fits only these short, cool conditions, and the type that released the most per gram gave the least.

Leaf, water temperature and steep time

Hotter water, more leaf and a longer steep all give a stronger cup of the same tea. In the same 2025 study, the oolong samples rose from about 4 to about 14 per cup when the water went from 80 to 100 °C. These cups run far lighter than the table above because they come from different teas, labs and methods, so compare figures only within one study.

Time pushes every type up: each one released significantly more caffeine the longer it steeped, and yellow tea reached 53 ± 17 per cup after 10 minutes at 100 °C, a wide spread between samples.

The ratio of leaf to water can outweigh temperature: gyokuro at 60 °C beats sencha at 90 °C partly because it gets 10 g of leaf in 60 ml, against sencha's 430 ml. Our guide to gongfu and western brewing compares the two methods.

Tea bags vs loose leaf

Tea bags released more caffeine than loose leaf in the same 2025 tests, for both green and black tea. Green tea at 80 °C for 5 minutes gave 28 per cup from a bag and 17 from loose leaf. At 100 °C for 10 minutes, black leaf gave 39 from a bag against 24 loose. Astill's 2001 study lists particle size and the bag itself among the factors that change caffeine in the cup.

Repeated infusions

In a gongfu session, most of the caffeine comes out in the first three infusions. Nine samples of Da Hong Pao, a Wuyi rock tea, were infused 14 times over in a 2020 study of Da Hong Pao infusions, with 5 g of leaf in 110 ml of water at 100 °C. Each infusion ran longer than the last, from 20 seconds to over 6 minutes, and in the study's words "about 70% of caffeine leached during the 1–3rd brew".

Cold brew, iced tea and milk

Cold water pulls out far less caffeine than hot, and extra time does not close the gap. In trials summed up in a 2018 NARO review, sencha left at about 10 °C for an hour gave about half the caffeine of a cup made at 80 °C for 2 minutes. In iced water at 0.5 °C, caffeine came to under 20% of the hot figure.

Iced tea made by pouring hot tea over ice keeps all the caffeine of the hot cup, spread through more liquid. Milk dilutes a cup the same way and removes no caffeine. When Quinlan and colleagues tested 16 people in 1997, caffeine levels in their saliva came out the same whatever drink carried it, tea with milk included. Chai is black tea made with milk and spices, so its caffeine follows the tea in it.

Tea vs coffee caffeine

Brewed coffee usually carries more caffeine than tea, though a strong gyokuro is more concentrated than coffee. The USDA gives about 96 mg for a 240 ml mug of brewed coffee and about 64 for a 30 ml espresso. Both are above the 14 to 61 found in a normal mug of tea.

An average oolong cup holds about 48 mg by the per-gram arithmetic above. One sample released about twice that average per gram, so by our arithmetic its cup would roughly match a mug of coffee, though no study measured it.

Espresso varies more than its average suggests. When Crozier and colleagues tested 20 commercial espressos in 2012, caffeine varied six-fold, and one café's espresso held 322 mg in a single serving.

Per 100 ml, the same Japanese figures give gyokuro 160 and coffee 60, the coffee made with 10 g of grounds in 150 ml of water. At that strength, a 60 ml cup of gyokuro holds about 96, the same as the USDA's mug of coffee.

Matcha stays below coffee: a 1.5 g bowl at about 48 is half the USDA's mug. For moving a coffee habit over to tea, read matcha vs coffee.

Decaf and caffeine-free tea

No tea from the tea plant is fully caffeine-free: even decaf tea keeps a small amount of caffeine. On the same Chongqing leaves, supercritical CO₂ (carbon dioxide under pressure) took out 98.2% of it from green tea and 97.1% from black, so a few percent stays in the leaf.

In the cup, the 20-tea survey found decaf teas under 12 mg a serving. The USDA lists brewed decaf black tea at 1 mg per 100 g, against 20 for the ordinary kind.

Every other tea from the tea plant carries some caffeine, stem tea included. Without decaf processing, older leaf comes closest to a light tea, since mature leaves hold far less caffeine than buds and young leaves. Stem tea is less certain, since the stem studies disagree.

For teas that suit a gentle or cold brew, see our low-caffeine teas collection, and for evening picks by style, our list of the best low-caffeine teas for the evening.

How much caffeine a day

The European Food Safety Authority's figure for adults is up to 400 mg of caffeine a day. EFSA's caffeine page, which sums up its May 2015 assessment, gives up to 200 for a single dose and up to 200 a day during pregnancy and breastfeeding. For children the figure is 3 mg per kilogram of body weight a day.

Six cups of tea at the top of the normal-mug range, 61 per cup, come to 366, inside the adult figure. Strong gyokuro, a whisked bowl of powder and any coffee count at their own figures in the same total.

For tea in the evening, our guide to the best tea for sleep covers timing and choices.

Where to start

For more caffeine, choose buds or shaded leaf and hot water; for less, use cold water or a short steep. Gyokuro made the Japanese way gives the strongest cup in this guide, because it joins shaded leaf with a lot of leaf in little water. Golden Needles, a black tea made mostly from buds, and Silver Needles, a white tea made only from buds, are the bud teas to brew hot. Bright Matter, a yellow bud tea, leans the same way. Our high-caffeine teas collection has more like them.

On the lighter side, start with Wild Winter Buds, which is nearly caffeine-free, or Hojicha made cold. Hojicha's roast has already taken a little caffeine off, and cold water draws out far less than hot, as the NARO trials on sencha showed. Every tea in our low-caffeine collection comes out lightest the same way, made cold or steeped short. Loose leaf helps too: it gave less caffeine than bagged tea in the Istanbul tests. In a gongfu session, the later infusions carry little, because most of the caffeine comes out in the first three.

Tokusei Matcha works differently: the powder is drunk whole, so a small bowl delivers all of the leaf's caffeine.

Frequently asked questions

Which tea has the most caffeine?

Per serving, a strong gyokuro holds the most caffeine of any tea here. Japan's official tables put gyokuro at 160 mg per 100 ml, about 96 in a 60 ml cup. A 1.5 g bowl of matcha, at 48, sits inside the range of an ordinary mug of tea. Per gram, teas of buds and young leaves hold among the most, whatever their type.

Which tea has the least caffeine?

Among teas from the tea plant, decaf has the least, under 12 mg a serving. Among ordinary teas no type is reliably the lowest, because the caffeine in tea follows the leaf and the brew more than the type. The lightest cup comes from cold water or a short steep.

Does green tea have more caffeine than black tea?

Green tea does not reliably have more caffeine than black tea, and the two are close. Per gram of leaf, black tea released about 18 and green tea about 16 in a 2016 analysis of 37 teas, roughly 44 against 41 per 250 ml cup made the same way. The 20-tea survey found no trend by type at all.

Does Earl Grey have more caffeine than green tea?

Earl Grey is black tea flavoured with bergamot, so its caffeine depends on that tea and the brew. No study behind this guide measured Earl Grey itself. A bagged Earl Grey left long in boiling water will likely beat a loose green tea made at 80 °C, since the bag, the heat and the time each add caffeine.

Does rinsing tea remove the caffeine?

A quick rinse removes only a small share of the caffeine, so it does not make tea caffeine-free. In the Da Hong Pao study, about 70% of it came out over the first three infusions, and the first of those lasted 20 seconds. Nigel Melican, writing on the Cha Dao tea blog in 2008, estimated from older lab data that a 30-second rinse removes about 9%; no study here measured a rinse directly.

Is 2 cups of tea a day too much caffeine?

By EFSA's figures, two cups of tea sit well inside the 400 mg a day given for adults. Even at 61 per cup, the top of the normal-mug range, two cups come to 122, also under EFSA's single-dose figure of 200 and its daily figure of 200 for pregnancy and breastfeeding.