How Much Caffeine Is in Tea? A Chart by Type

Most caffeine charts you'll find online quietly disagree with each other, and that's not because anyone's lying — it's because caffeine in a finished cup depends on how it was brewed, not just what type it is. The ranges in the table above are deliberately presented as ranges, drawn from USDA FoodData Central and peer-reviewed tea-chemistry studies, because a single number would be false precision.

Here's the hierarchy worth memorizing, from most caffeine to none: matcha > black > oolong > green ≈ white > decaf > herbal (zero). Matcha tops the list not because the matcha plant is unusually potent, but because you whisk the powdered leaf into water and drink the whole thing instead of discarding a steeped infusion.

If you only remember one thing, remember that: tea is, broadly, a gentler caffeine source than coffee, and within tea, the spread between the lightest white tea and a serving of matcha is roughly four- to five-fold.

Black tea is fully oxidized, and it reliably sits at the top of the brewed-tea caffeine range — roughly 40–70 mg per 8-ounce cup. The robust breakfast blends most people drink (English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Assam-forward blends) tend toward the higher end, partly because they're often sold as broken-leaf or in dust-filled bags that extract fast in hot water.

This is the tea to reach for when you want a coffee-like lift without coffee's intensity. Brewed near boiling (200–212°F) for the recommended 3–5 minutes, a strong black tea can comfortably replace a morning coffee for many people. It's also the most forgiving to over-steep in terms of flavor — though longer steeping does pull more caffeine, so a 6-minute mug is stronger than a 3-minute one.

If you're caffeine-sensitive but love black tea, a shorter 2-minute steep meaningfully reduces the dose while still giving you color and flavor.

Green tea and white tea are the everyday gentle options. Green tea typically runs 15–45 mg per cup and white tea 15–35 mg, though the white-tea range surprises people — because white tea is made largely from young buds, and buds are naturally caffeine-rich, a bud-heavy white like Silver Needle can brew stronger than a leafy green.

The reason green and white usually feel lighter isn't only the leaf — it's the brewing. Both are brewed with cooler water (around 160–185°F) and shorter steeps, and cooler water extracts less caffeine. Brew a green tea with boiling water for five minutes and you'll pull far more caffeine (and far more bitterness) than the gentle steep the leaf is designed for.

For an afternoon cup that won't threaten your sleep, a lightly steeped green or white tea is the classic choice.

Oolong tea is partially oxidized — somewhere between green and black — and its caffeine lands there too, generally 30–50 mg per cup. The category is broad: a lightly oxidized, greener oolong behaves more like a green tea, while a darker, roasted oolong behaves more like a black. Oolongs are also famously re-steepable, and each successive infusion pulls less caffeine than the last, so a second or third steep is naturally gentler.

If you like the idea of a tea that shifts character (and caffeine) depending on how you brew it, oolong rewards experimentation more than any other type.

Matcha breaks the pattern. With every other tea on this page, you steep leaves in water and then discard the leaves — you only drink the caffeine that dissolved out. With matcha, the leaves are stone-ground into a fine powder and whisked directly into the water, so you ingest the entire leaf. That's why a single serving (about 1 teaspoon, or ~2 grams) delivers roughly 60–80 mg of caffeine — enough to rival a small coffee.

Matcha is also made from shade-grown leaves, which the plant responds to by producing more caffeine and more L-theanine. That combination is why matcha drinkers often describe its lift as strong but smooth — a steadier alertness rather than a coffee spike. If you're managing caffeine carefully, treat one bowl of matcha as roughly equivalent to a cup of black tea plus a bit more, not as a light green tea.

Here's the cleanest fact on this whole page: true herbal teas contain no caffeine at all. Chamomile, peppermint, rooibos, hibiscus, lemon balm, ginger and the like aren't made from Camellia sinensis — they're infusions of other plants, none of which produce caffeine. That's exactly why they're the standard recommendation for evenings and for anyone avoiding stimulants entirely.

The one trap to watch for: yerba maté is sold and brewed like an herbal tea but does contain caffeine — roughly 30–50 mg per cup. And any "herbal blend" that includes green tea, black tea or maté will carry their caffeine. Always read the ingredients if zero caffeine is the goal.

For wellness routines, herbal teas may support relaxation and have long been traditionally used to wind down before bed — but they aren't a treatment for insomnia or any medical condition, and the evidence is largely about comfort and habit rather than clinical effect.

Tea type sets your starting range; how you brew decides where in that range you land. Three variables do almost all the work:

1. Water temperature. Caffeine dissolves faster in hotter water. A near-boiling brew extracts more caffeine than a cooler one — which is part of why black tea (brewed hot) out-caffeinates green tea (brewed cool), beyond the leaf itself.

2. Steep time. The longer the leaf sits in the water, the more caffeine it releases. Most caffeine comes out in the first few minutes, but a 5-minute steep clearly out-caffeinates a 2-minute one. Want less? Pull the bag early.

3. Leaf form. Broken leaf and dust (the "fannings" in many cheap tea bags) have more surface area and release caffeine fast. Whole-leaf tea releases more slowly and gently. This is one reason a standard supermarket black-tea bag can punch above a whole-leaf loose tea.

Put together, these levers explain every "but that chart said something different" discrepancy you'll ever see. Two people brewing the same tea can easily end up with cups that differ by 20 mg or more.

For most healthy adults, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cites up to 400 mg of caffeine per day — roughly four to five cups of coffee — as an amount not generally associated with negative effects. In tea terms, that's a lot of cups: even at black tea's strong end of 70 mg, you'd be drinking five or six cups to approach the threshold.

That said, individual sensitivity varies enormously, and certain groups should be more cautious. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists advises pregnant people to keep caffeine under 200 mg per day, which makes tea's lower doses appealing but still worth counting. Anyone sensitive to caffeine, managing anxiety, or drinking tea late in the day will feel the difference between a 15 mg white tea and an 80 mg matcha.

The practical takeaway: use the chart to budget. A morning black tea (~60 mg), an afternoon green (~30 mg), and an evening chamomile (0 mg) is a full, satisfying tea day that stays comfortably under 100 mg of caffeine. Tea makes it genuinely easy to enjoy the ritual while keeping the stimulant where you want it.