Here’s an annoyingly accurate answer: it depends.

A kopi doesn’t come out of a laboratory dispensing a fixed number of milligrams of caffeine.

Different stalls use different coffee blends, different amounts of grounds, different brewing ratios and different serving sizes.

Small cup doesn’t necessarily mean small caffeine

Traditional kopi commonly uses coffee blends containing robusta.

Robusta generally contains more caffeine than arabica, so the little cup in front of you shouldn’t automatically be assumed to contain less caffeine simply because it’s smaller than a café latte.

What about a latte?

A latte may look like a huge cup of coffee, but most of its volume is milk.

Its caffeine largely depends on the espresso that went into it — including the coffee dose and number of shots.

A long black made using the same espresso dose may therefore contain a similar amount of caffeine despite looking and tasting completely different.

Then there’s cold brew

Cold brew makes simple comparisons even harder.

Coffee-to-water ratio, brewing recipe, whether the drink is a concentrate, dilution and serving size can all change how much caffeine eventually reaches your glass.

Tea counts too

Teh contains caffeine.

So does matcha.

The amount varies with the tea, quantity used, preparation and serving size.

Cup size does not tell you caffeine dose.

The beans matter.

The dose matters.

The brewing method matters.

The concentration matters.

And the person making it matters.

Which is inconvenient when your website is literally named after caffeine.

But chemistry refuses to cooperate with SEO.

C₈H₁₀N₄O₂: simple formula, surprisingly complicated cup.

Confused about kopi terminology instead? Read the Caffeine.sg guide to ordering kopi and teh →