Eric D. Schabell: Caffee vs Tea, which has more caffeine

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Caffee vs Tea, which has more caffeine

This is an off the wall posting about a topic that has been running around the workplace at about every IT job I have had. Coffee drinkers get headaches in the weekend from too much caffeine and think switching to tea will help. I finally sat down and did a bit of research on this and here are my findings (a hint, the tea drinkers are partially right):

At the Indiana University Library you can see the details, but the summary is that "..an average pound of tea has the equivalent caffeine content of two average pounds of coffee." As one does not eat coffee or tea by the bean or leaf, this means nothing.

If we look at the results produced by a single pound of coffee or tea we see that it "...will result in only 40 cups of coffee, whereas the pound of tea leaves will result in 160 cups."

Can you do the math?

This means that a cup of coffee has twice the amount of caffeine as a cup of tea.

Back to the discussion at workplaces around the globe. You can switch from coffee to tea, but this is not a caffeine free drink. According to Consumer Reports, both coffee and tea drinkers have nothing to fear when they drink in moderation.

Sound like a plan to me, time for a coffee break!