How Does Arabica Caffeine Compare With Other Beans?

Caffeine content decides whether a cup keeps you awake or lets you sleep, and it varies from drink to drink. Arabica beans generally hold less caffeine than Robusta, so the same drinking habit can produce a racing heart at one shop and nothing at another. Dose of grounds, extraction method and bean variety all shift the final number.

An Americano can differ simply because one cafe pulls 18 grams of grounds and another uses more or less. Asked whether Arabic coffee is high in caffeine, the answer depends on the bean and the brew rather than the name alone. Decaf remains the friendlier option for people who are sensitive to caffeine.

Have you ever had this confusion: drinking coffee the same way, sometimes you toss and turn unable to sleep with a racing heart, while other times it has no effect at all? Behind this is actually a close relationship with caffeine intake, and the caffeine content is in turn influenced by multiple factors such as the dose of grounds, the extraction method, and the coffee bean variety. This article will guide you through the essential difference in caffeine content between Arabica and Robusta, analyze the key variables that affect how much caffeine ends up in a cup of coffee, and introduce decaf coffee as a friendlier choice for sensitive individuals. The article will also mention related products from the Front Street brand to help you enjoy coffee more scientifically.

Front Street had originally braced itself to receive a string of compliments like "beautiful and sweet-voiced" or "your coffee is especially delicious," but what the other person actually said was: "Because drinking your coffee doesn't give me insomnia or heart palpitations..."

He then immediately raised his question: "Why is it that when I drink coffee at other shops I'm especially prone to insomnia and heart palpitations, but at your place I'm not? And why does drinking Americano seem to cause insomnia more easily than pour-over? What exactly is the reason?" The answer is actually not complicated—the root cause lies in the difference in caffeine content. Friends like this belong to the typical group of people who are relatively sensitive to caffeine; once their total caffeine intake is on the high side, they easily experience reactions such as insomnia and heart palpitations.

The reason coffee from different shops produces different physical reactions is precisely that the caffeine content in each cup is not the same. Some are lower, some are higher, and so the phenomenon arises where some people get insomnia after drinking it while others are unaffected. So how does this difference come about? There are quite a few influencing factors, such as the dose of grounds, the extraction method, the bean variety, and so on. As we all know, caffeine comes from the coffee fruit (bean); generally speaking, the larger the amount of coffee beans used, the higher the caffeine content in the final extraction. Take Americano as an example: some cafés use 18 grams of grounds to extract the espresso, while others use 20 grams. Even this small difference in dose alone can cause the caffeine content to diverge.

In addition, the extraction method also affects caffeine content. For instance, with the same 20 grams of grounds, using different extraction methods will yield different caffeine contents. For example, if Front Street extracts by pour-over, the extraction yield might land around 20%; if switched to the espresso method, the extraction yield might reach 22%. Comparing the two, the caffeine concentration of pour-over will be lower than that of espresso, so drinking pour-over doesn't cause insomnia as easily as drinking Americano (this is only an illustrative example; in reality many other variables are also at play). Or, alternatively, if both cups are made as espresso, with the first cup using 92°C water and the second cup using 94°C water, then the second cup will most likely have a higher caffeine content. The reason is that a higher temperature increases extraction efficiency, allowing more caffeine to dissolve out of the coffee beans.

Of course, the factor of the coffee beans themselves cannot be ruled out either. Just as fruits come in different varieties, coffee is also divided into multiple varieties, and the caffeine content of each variety is not the same. Currently, commercial coffee on the market is mainly divided into two major categories: Arabica and Robusta. Arabica is the most commonly used variety in coffee shops, with a relatively low caffeine content, accounting for about 0.9% to 1.2% of the bean's weight. At the same time, it contains abundant sugars and ample oils, which give the coffee a full and layered aroma. It is precisely for this reason that Arabica is so favored by major coffee shops. (Arabica on the left, Robusta on the right)

Compared with Arabica, Robusta has a considerably higher caffeine content, usually about twice that of Arabica. Not only that, its amino acid and chlorogenic acid contents are also higher than those of Arabica. This gives coffee made from Robusta an especially heavy body and flavor, making it very suitable as a raw material for instant coffee, or for adding to blended beans to enhance the coffee's texture and flavor. The "Commercial Blend" on Front Street's bean list includes 10% Robusta beans, with the aim of making the coffee taste richer and the crema thicker.

If the beans a shop uses contain Robusta, then the caffeine content will be somewhat higher than that of pure Arabica beans. But it should be noted that Robusta does not mean inferior quality; it has quite a few advantages—it's just that this is not an article specifically introducing Robusta, so Front Street won't go into detail here. Taken together, we can conclude that the extraction method, the dose of grounds, and the bean variety used are all major factors affecting the caffeine content. For people who are highly sensitive to caffeine, the safest approach is to keep an eye on how much coffee they drink each day. Or, replace your daily coffee with decaf. Because decaf coffee has an extremely low caffeine content, even if you don't deliberately control your intake, it is unlikely to cause problems such as insomnia or heart palpitations.

There are many types of decaf coffee, and the mainstream one at present is artificial decaffeination. On Front Street's bean list there is a Front Street decaf coffee from Colombia, which uses the Swiss Water Process. The caffeine in the coffee beans is effectively removed (reduced to 3% of the caffeine in the original beans), while a certain amount of flavor is retained. If you are relatively sensitive to caffeine, then decaf coffee is still worth a try~

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.