Which has more caffeine a light or a dark roast?

 Which has more caffeine a light or a dark roast?

Types of Beans

Start first with the coffee beans.  To make it simple, there are basically two types of beans the Robusta bean and the Arabica bean.  The Robusta bean is primarily used in diners and found in cheap cans of coffee, whereas the Arabica bean is a specialty coffee found primarily in coffee shops and in fancy bags on grocery store shelves.

Bean content 

Next let's move to the make-up of the beans – the Robusta bean contains about eleven milligrams of caffeine per bean and the Arabica bean has around six. That tells us that the Robusta bean has a higher caffeine content than the arabica bean.  But not so fast, as the question of light roast or dark roast has yet to be answered. 

The counter  

The caffeine molecule in both Robusta and arabica beans are rather stable. Caffeine remains calm cool and collected all the way up to 235C, way above the boiling point of water (212C).  This means bean for bean; both the light and dark roast contain the same amount of caffeine. If you count your beans – about 76 beans per six-ounce cup of water, then both a cup of light roast and dark roast will have the same amount of caffeine.

The scooper and the scaler      

But what about scooper and scaler coffee drinkers?  You will need to know that beans when roasted get bigger.  The more time in the roaster the fatter and lighter the bean becomes. The scooper deals directly with volume.  Two scoops (or four tablespoons) of beans and ¾ cup (six ounces) of water makes the scooper’s cup.  Since denser and smaller describes the lighter roasted bean, that means more beans in a cup by volume, hence more caffeine.  Now if you are a scaler, meaning you weigh your beans (different origin beans weigh differently), you will need ten grams of coffee for your six ounces of water.  Pound for pound a dark roast has more beans (fatter and lighter), hence it has more caffeine.    

That sums it up

Clear as mud – if you count your seventy-six beans the caffeine remains the same, if you scoop your beans light roast has it, and if you weigh your beans the dark roast wins. Oh, and in the event curiosity has you, weighing delivers the best cup. 

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