How To Get The Most Caffeine Out Of Coffee?

Coffee has been one of the most common beverages in the world with many people drinking it every day as a morning ritual. Along with the popularity of this drink is the demand for more understanding of coffee, brewing, and its tastes.

While some like bitter coffee, others prefer a lighter taste; while some like decaf coffee, others prefer their coffee rich in caffeine.

In this post, however, we will focus on how to get the most caffeine out of coffee.

The Type Of Coffee

By the type of coffee, we mean the beans you use.

Caffeine is a natural insect repellent, which means beans produced at low altitudes have more caffeine due to the higher presence of insects.

On the other hand, at high altitudes, there are few insects, so the beans have less caffeine. In other words, coffee beans at high altitudes don’t have to adapt to flee bugs away so there is less caffeine in them.

Due to nutrient-dense soils, coffees at high altitudes usually contain more polyphenols.

The choice of the brewing process will have an influence on the amount of polyphenol and caffeine you get out of the coffee.

The Roasting Process

The roast darkness affects the caffeine content as it impacts the beans’ weight. When you measure the grounds by weight, dark roasts result in more caffeine.

But when you measure it by volume, light roasts have more caffeine. Keep this in mind when you choose coffee.

The Brewing Process

The altitude of the coffee beans brings us to this step, choosing a brewing process that yields the most caffeine out of your coffee.

But before digging into this, there are two things to keep in mind: the grind size and the water temperature.

In terms of the grind, the smaller the size, the larger the surface area. A grind that’s as fine as cosmetic powder offers the highest extraction. When it comes to water, the higher the temperature, the higher the extractions.

Cowboy coffee and Turkish coffee: these methods offer the highest extractions, but they are not likely the way to go home.

They basically combine boiling water with ultra-fine coffee grinds without filtering.

With this technique, the grinds are all in the water, meaning complete contact on every side of the grind. However, these methods result in quite bitter coffee due to over-extraction.

Pour-over techniques: these are the highest-extraction methods to use at home. Here, you need a grind of a larger size than the previous methods.

If you make use of a fine grind size in these techniques, it will stop the water up, nothing goes through, and you will get a mess of wet coffee with few drips.

Nevertheless, you can extract some caffeine using medium-fine grind sizes with these methods if you pour very hot water over the grind slowly.

AeroPress: this method offers similar caffeine levels to the pour-over methods. Technically, this is an immersion method like cowboy coffee and Turkish coffee, but you need a grind of medium size in an AeroPress.

Don’t try using a fine grind because the method requires pressure to push, in which a fine grind will end up bursting out of the device.

Automatic drip & single-cup coffee makers: coffee machines offer lower extractions than pour-over and immersion methods.

The reason is that they use a larger grind size and the water is much less hot. To get more caffeine out of your coffee using a coffee machine, you should look for models with hotter water and input more coffee.

French press: straightforwardly, this method doesn’t offer high extractions. Though this method uses very hot water and it’s an immersion method, it also uses a large grind size, which is why its extraction is the lowest.

Cold-brew: this is an under-extraction method that offers extraction of 75-80% of hot brew methods. In this technique, you have to brew for a longer time to make up for the low temperature. Besides, you cannot use a fine grind size.

Nevertheless, the caffeine content in a cold brew cup is determined by the level of concentration.

For instance, a cup of straight cold brew coffee would taste quite intense, so it’s usually mixed with milk or water.

The Amount Of Coffee

Last but not least, after all, if you cannot get the desired caffeine content for one cup from the aforementioned factors, you can resort to increasing the amount of coffee you drink.

It’s recommended that you take 400mg of caffeine a day. And with different methods, you can drink different amounts of coffee to get a total of 400mg.

Specifically, to get this caffeine content from espresso, you need to drink three cups, 126mg each. You need up to five shots of stovetop espresso, 65 to 73mg each, to get this total.

If you drink cold brew, you need two cups, 134mg each. If you drink French press brew coffee, take five, 74-87mg each. And if you choose the pour-over method, get two cups, 173mg each.

Conclusion

Overall, in this post, we have listed out and analyzed all the factors that can affect the amount of caffeine you get from your coffee, including the altitude, roasting process, brewing process, and intake amount.

We hope that you have figured out how to get the most caffeine out of coffee with all these factors considered and will enjoy your coffee every day.