Do Dark Roast Coffee Beans Have More Caffeine Than Light Roasts?

Do Dark Roast Coffee Beans Have More Caffeine Than Light Roasts?

No! That’s the low-effort answer!

Like all broad questions, we have to narrow down what the question really means. On the basis that we are using the same coffee beans that are not decaffeinated, from the same lot of green coffee and harvest season, with the same moisture readings. Both batches of coffee should start the same.

If we ignore the colour of the coffee for now and talk a little bit about moisture. If we compare the amount of liquid (or moisture percentage) in a caffeinated coffee bean to the amount of caffeine that it holds (this is not an exact science, but it is a pretty good rule. The more developed the roast is, the more liquid will be reduced during the roasting process.

This means overall that although the flavour of the roast may be stronger in the darker roast coffee, the lighter roast will most likely have at least as much caffeine in.

If you were to go out and buy a cup of “dark roasted” coffee, you may find that the vendor is using less coffee than one using a light roast. The lighter roast may require more coffee to carry enough flavour through milk. This is before we consider using different coffees with different amounts of caffeine, such as Robusta or Liberica.

I wrote this other piece about caffeine a few years ago.