All teas made from the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, contain caffeine. That includes black, green, white, oolong, and pu-erh tea. A few herbal infusions also contain caffeine naturally, even though most herbal teas are caffeine-free. The amount in your cup depends on the type of tea, how hot the water is, and how long you steep it.
Black Tea
Black tea is the most widely consumed caffeinated tea in the West and delivers roughly 48 mg of caffeine per 8-ounce cup. That’s about half of what you’d get from the same size cup of brewed coffee. Common varieties like English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Assam, and Darjeeling all fall under the black tea umbrella, though their exact caffeine levels shift depending on the specific leaves and how you brew them.
Green Tea
A standard 8-ounce cup of brewed green tea contains about 29 mg of caffeine, making it a noticeably lighter option than black tea. Sencha, one of the most popular green teas worldwide, runs a bit higher at 50 to 60 mg per serving because the leaves are typically used in a slightly larger dose relative to water volume.
Matcha is the outlier in the green tea family. Because you’re drinking the whole leaf ground into a fine powder rather than steeping and discarding the leaves, you absorb all the caffeine the leaf contains. A typical 2-gram serving of matcha delivers about 68 mg of caffeine, which puts it closer to coffee territory. Gyokuro, a shade-grown Japanese green tea, can reach 120 to 140 mg per brewed serving, though you don’t consume the full amount since the leaves are removed after steeping.
White and Oolong Tea
White tea is made from the youngest buds and leaves of the tea plant and is minimally processed. It generally contains the least caffeine of the true teas, typically falling in the range of 15 to 30 mg per cup, though this varies with the specific variety and brewing method.
Oolong tea sits between green and black tea in terms of oxidation, and its caffeine content reflects that middle ground. Expect roughly 30 to 50 mg per 8-ounce cup. Lighter oolongs brewed at lower temperatures will land at the lower end, while heavily roasted or more oxidized oolongs creep toward the upper end.
Pu-erh Tea
Pu-erh is a fermented tea from China’s Yunnan province, and its caffeine content depends on whether it’s raw (sheng) or ripe (shou). Raw pu-erh contains about 30 to 45 mg per 8-ounce cup. Ripe pu-erh, which undergoes an accelerated microbial fermentation process called wet piling, runs higher at 60 to 70 mg per cup. The fermentation process itself appears to concentrate caffeine rather than break it down.
Herbal Teas That Contain Caffeine
Most herbal teas, including chamomile, peppermint, rooibos, and hibiscus, contain zero caffeine because they aren’t made from the tea plant. But a handful of herbal infusions buck that trend:
- Yerba mate contains roughly 30 to 85 mg per 8-ounce serving, with wide variation depending on how it’s prepared. Traditional gourd-style preparation with repeated refills tends to extract more caffeine than a single steep.
- Guayusa delivers about 40 to 70 mg per cup. It comes from a holly tree native to the Amazon and has a smooth, slightly sweet flavor with less bitterness than yerba mate.
- Yaupon holly is the only caffeine-containing plant native to North America. It’s gaining popularity as a tea and provides a moderate caffeine boost.
- Guarana is more commonly found as an ingredient in energy drinks and supplements, but it can also be brewed as a tea and contains significant caffeine.
How Brewing Changes Your Caffeine
The caffeine number on a label is just an estimate. What actually ends up in your cup depends heavily on two factors: water temperature and steeping time.
Hotter water extracts caffeine dramatically faster. In lab testing, tea steeped in boiling water (100°C) released about 25 mg of caffeine into an 8-ounce cup after just one minute. The same tea in room temperature water (20°C) released only about 1.4 mg in that first minute. After four minutes, the boiling water cup contained roughly 43 mg while the room temperature cup held just 10 mg.
Steeping time matters most in the first few minutes. At boiling temperature, caffeine extraction plateaus around the six-minute mark at roughly 47 mg per cup and doesn’t increase meaningfully after that. So steeping your black tea for ten minutes instead of five won’t add much more caffeine, but cutting a five-minute steep down to two will noticeably reduce it. If you’re trying to limit caffeine from your tea, using slightly cooler water and shorter steeping times is the most practical lever you have.
How Tea Compares to Coffee
An 8-ounce cup of brewed coffee contains roughly 95 mg of caffeine, about double what you’d get from a strong black tea and triple a typical green tea. Matcha at 68 mg per serving is the tea that comes closest. The gap widens further with espresso-based drinks, though those are served in smaller volumes.
One practical difference: tea contains an amino acid that slows the absorption of caffeine and promotes a calmer alertness compared to coffee’s sharper spike. Many tea drinkers describe the energy as steadier, with less of the jittery feeling that coffee can produce.
Decaf Tea Still Has Some Caffeine
If you’re avoiding caffeine entirely, be aware that decaffeinated tea isn’t completely caffeine-free. The decaffeination process removes most of the caffeine, but 1 to 2 percent typically remains. For a tea that originally contained 48 mg, that means a decaf version might still have about 1 to 2 mg per cup. That’s negligible for most people, but it can matter if you’re extremely sensitive or avoiding caffeine for medical reasons. Truly zero-caffeine options are herbal teas that never contained caffeine in the first place, like rooibos, chamomile, or peppermint.