- By weight, tea wins hands down for caffeine content. But the same amounts of tea and coffee are not used to brew the same quantity of beverage.
- One ounce of coffee beans might brew 1 to 3 cups of coffee, depending on your preference. One ounce of tea can make 20 to 30 cups. Many teas can also be brewed two to three times, increasing that number to 40 to 90 cups. If we are talking about coffee vs. tea consumption, coffee has more caffeine.
- Although espresso, which is brewed very quickly using pressurized steam and more beans per brew has more caffeine ounce per ounce than coffee that is prepared using the standard drip method, espresso drinks usually don't contain much more than one or two shot glasses worth of espresso. Thus an 8 ounce Starbucks coffee has 180 milligrams of caffeine, whereas an 8 ounce cappuccino with a single shot of espresso only has 75 milligrams. However, in both cases, there is more caffeine present than in an 8 ounce Tazo tea beverage.
- Depending on the type of tea (white, black, green or oolong), and whether a prepared bag is used, or tea leaves are measured out by hand, there can also be a great deal of variance in the caffeine content of teas. However, according to Stash Teas, the range of caffeine content for 8 ounces of white, green and black tea was between 15 and 50 milligrams.
- Although there are different ways of brewing both tea and coffee, and tea leaves contain more caffeine by weight, when it comes to standard tea and coffee beverages, ounce for ounce, coffee will almost always have more caffeine.
