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No. Cup for cup, coffee has roughly double the caffeine of tea: an 8oz cup of brewed coffee averages 95mg (USDA) against 47mg for 8oz of black tea and around 28mg for green tea. The confusion comes from a true but misleading fact: dry tea leaves contain more caffeine by weight than coffee beans. You just use far less leaf per cup and extract it more gently, so the brewed cup lands well below coffee every time.
Brewed cup vs brewed cup
| Drink | Serving | Caffeine |
|---|---|---|
| Brewed coffee | 8oz | 95mg (USDA) |
| Espresso | 1oz shot | 63mg (USDA) |
| Black tea | 8oz | 47mg |
| Green tea | 8oz | ~28mg |
| Matcha | per gram of powder | 20-45mg |
| Decaf coffee | 8oz | 2-15mg |
The FDA considers up to 400mg per day generally safe for healthy adults.
Where the "tea has more caffeine" myth comes from
By dry weight, tea leaves beat coffee beans on caffeine content, and that factoid circulates endlessly. But nobody eats dry leaves. A cup of tea uses a few grams of leaf steeped for a few minutes in water below boiling; a cup of coffee uses several times more ground bean, hotter water, and a brew method built to extract aggressively. The result in the cup is what matters, and there coffee wins by about two to one over black tea and three to one over green.
The exceptions worth knowing
Matcha narrows the gap because you drink the whole powdered leaf instead of an infusion: at 20-45mg per gram, a generous two-gram serving can approach a weak cup of coffee. Steep time and leaf amount also move tea numbers around a lot, so a long-steeped, double-bagged black tea can outdo a small, milky coffee drink. And a single 1oz espresso at 63mg already beats an 8oz black tea at 47mg, which surprises people who think of espresso as "just a little cup." The full lineup lives in the caffeine database, and you can quiz yourself on the guess the caffeine game.
Switching between them
Tea is the practical step-down for people cutting back: swapping an afternoon coffee for black tea roughly halves that dose, and green tea cuts it by about two thirds. A loose leaf tea infuser makes the swap feel less like a downgrade. If the goal is protecting sleep, timing matters as much as dose; the caffeine curfew calculator works for tea and coffee alike.
Related reading
FAQ
Does tea have more caffeine than coffee? No. An 8oz brewed coffee averages 95mg vs 47mg for black tea and about 28mg for green tea. Tea only wins by dry leaf weight, not in the cup.
Why do people say tea has more caffeine than coffee? Dry tea leaves contain more caffeine by weight than coffee beans, but a cup uses much less leaf and gentler extraction, so brewed tea ends up weaker.
Which tea has the most caffeine? Among common cups, black tea leads at 47mg per 8oz. Matcha can rival it or more at 20-45mg per gram of powder, since you consume the whole leaf.
Sources: USDA FoodData Central (brewed coffee, espresso, tea); FDA guidance on caffeine. This page is information, not medical advice.
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