How much caffeine is in a matcha latte?

Matcha gets talked about as the gentle alternative to coffee. On caffeine alone, a matcha latte is not the lighter drink.

Counts toward goal385 ml
Caffeine70 mg
Calories105 kcal

Move the slider to see what a bigger or smaller matcha latte does to the numbers. The app uses the same figures. The caffeine comes from the shot count, not from the volume, so it stays put as you drag.

See when today's caffeine clears with the caffeine cutoff calculator.

More caffeine than the coffee latte next to it

A 350 ml matcha latte is 70 mg of caffeine. A single-shot latte of the same size is 63 mg, and a cup of steeped green tea is 30 mg. Swapping your morning latte for a matcha does not reduce your caffeine; on these numbers it slightly increases it. What people are usually describing when they call matcha gentler is how the lift feels, not how much caffeine arrives. The app makes no claim about that either way. It tracks caffeine, and only caffeine.

You swallow the leaf instead of an infusion

The difference from ordinary green tea is preparation, not the plant. Steeped tea is an extract. Hot water pulls part of the caffeine out of the leaves. The rest stays behind in the pot with the leaves you throw away. Matcha is stone-ground whole leaf whisked into the liquid. Whatever caffeine the powder contained ends up in your cup, with none left over. Growers also shade matcha plants for weeks before picking. That pushes up the caffeine and amino acid content of the leaf before it is ever ground.

The milk earns the hydration bonus, not the tea

This drink counts for 385 ml against a 350 ml serving, at a hydration factor of 1.10. That figure belongs to the milk. Plain green tea sits at 1.00 in the same catalog, level with water. The latte version rises above it only because most of the cup is dairy. The same mechanism lifts a coffee latte. The milk brings the calories with it too: 105 kcal for a standard serving, before any syrup. That is more than a cappuccino and less than a coffee latte.

Hydration factors follow the Beverage Hydration Index: Maughan RJ, Watson P, Cordery PA, et al. “A randomized trial to assess the potential of different beverages to affect hydration status: development of a beverage hydration index.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2016;103(3):717-723. Read the paper on PubMed. In WaterChamp a matcha latte counts for slightly more than plain water.

The WaterChamp mascot drinking boba tea

WaterChamp for iPhone & Android

A water, caffeine and alcohol tracker. It counts 62 drinks toward your daily goal, shows a live hydration level, and tells you your last chance for coffee.

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