When coffee is brought into the discussion, besides talking about coffee brands, coffee types, or how to brew coffee at home… one of the things that is often raised is coffee’s back draw once we consume it. The amount of caffeine in coffee we drink must be put under consideration due to its negative effect resulting in bad health conditions.
Dunkin Donuts is one of the biggest and best well-known coffee restaurants in the U.S. However, famous as it is, whether Dunkin Donuts coffee contains a lot of caffeine or not?
Let’s find out the answer via this article!
Does Dunkin Donuts coffee contain a lot of caffeine?
Like many other coffee and fast food restaurants, Dunkin also developed the menu, aiming to broaden the range of drinks, especially coffee year by year.
Compared to other coffee brands, Dunkin coffee is not the one that produces the least-caffeine coffee cups. This is shown in a caffeine chart ranking among drinks from several companies based on sizes by the Center for Science in the Public interest.
In this chart, Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee with Turbo Shot in large size (20 fl. oz.) contains 436 mg of caffeine; a usual medium cup of Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee (14 fl. oz.) has 178 mg; the amount of caffeine measured in a large serving (20 fl. oz.) of Dunkin’ Donuts Cappuccino is 151 mg. Even Dunkin Donuts’ decaf coffee also contains from 15 mg to 25 mg caffeine, yet still much less than other kinds of coffee.
However, compared to Starbucks, Dunkin’ coffee contains a lot more caffeine. If you want to control the caffeine quantities in your coffee but still desire to enjoy Dunkin’s shots, you totally can order a decaf coffee as well as avoid espresso, Americano, original blend coffee, iced or hot coffee, latte, energy brews or macchiato.
The most caffeinated coffee in Dunkin Donuts
Every kind of coffee has different amounts of caffeine, depending on the consistency in texture due to brewing methods. In the Dunkin coffee lineup, we first make some distinctive categories for a clearer comparison.
Dunkin Donut Iced Coffees
Iced Macchiato is the most caffeinated one in the iced coffee group. The caffeine content in the small size (16 fl oz) is 237 mg, the medium size (24 fl oz) is 284 mg and the large one (32 fl oz) is 371 mg.
Dunkin Donut Cold Brew
Energy cold brew, like other energy drinks, contains lots of caffeine. 292 mg of caffeine for a small serving, 378 mg for a medium one, and the highest 465 mg for the largest.
Dunkin Donut Hot Coffee Beverages
In this bracket, Extra Charged Coffee seems to be considered the most caffeinated drink though Americano comes up to rank first. With caffeine content of about 237 mg, 284 mg, and 371 mg in small size, medium size, and large sizes respectively.
Dunkin Donut Hot Chocolates
Espresso is one of the best-selling items in Dunkin Donuts but its caffeine content is also one of the highest among sorts of coffee. The small size contains 127 mg of caffeine while the medium has 131 mg and the large size has 136 mg.
As a result, energy cold brew is the most caffeinated one within Dunkin Donuts’ coffee types. In case you need something to assist you in dealing with sleepiness or heavy exercises, not drinking a shot of energy cold brew is genuine advice. Consuming energy brews usually might cause you severe health issues.
However, it seems like energy cold brew has stopped being present on Dunkin’s menu after 2 years since its first release in 2019.
How much caffeine is in a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee?
A massive 210 mg of caffeine is consumed when you down a 14-ounce cup of Dunkin’ Donuts brewed coffee. However, Dunkin’ Donuts has increased the amount of caffeine in its coffee over time by altering the brewing process. As a result, they are now on par with Starbucks in terms of caffeine content, the world’s largest coffee company.
How much caffeine is in a large coffee from Dunkin Donuts?
There are several kinds of coffee listed on Dunkin Donuts’ menu so we will just go straight to the most well-known coffee in Dunkin Donuts which is regular coffee regardless of hot or iced. Frequently, iced coffee is more caffeinated than the hot one.
In a large cup of hot coffee, the amount of caffeine is about 270 mg while a large cup of iced coffee has 396 mg of caffeine.
How to know which coffee has the most caffeine?
The caffeine content in coffee significantly depends on 4 factors: type of coffee beans, roasting method, type of coffee, and serving size. Therefore, the caffeine measurement and determination must be done through consideration of these factors.
Type of coffee beans
Arabica and Robusta are the two most-consumed coffee beans due to their high quality and reputation over the world.
The research “How Much Caffeine in Coffee Cup? Effects of Processing Operations, Extraction Methods, and Variables” by the Department of Science of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Foggia, Italy demonstrate that on average, the raw Arabica shows caffeine content ranging from 0.9 to 1.5% (dry weight), while the Robusta contains about twice as much between 1.2 and 2.4%.
In addition, an experiment named “Determination of Caffeine Content in Arabica and Robusta Green Coffee of Indian Origin” made in Arabica and Robusta samples obtained a caffeine content of 182 mg/100 g for the Robusta green coffee sample and 154 mg/100 g for the Arabica green coffee sample.
Therefore, all kinds of coffee brewed from Robusta beans contain more caffeine content than Arabica.
Roasting
While the darker roasts give a more flavor, lighter roasts have more caffeine. However, this is not always the case.
The color of a coffee bean after being brewed does not affect its caffeine content. A stronger taste or more consistent texture of coffee doesn’t imply that it has more caffeine content because you cannot taste caffeine.
The light roast gives a more caffeine content if the measurement is made by volume and the darker roast coffee has more caffeine content if you measure by weight.
Because the beans are heavier and denser with a lighter roast, a cup of coffee roasted on a light profile will contain more caffeine than one cup roasted darker. The light roast will have more mass even though the volume is the same.
Type of coffee
Regularly brewed coffee, espresso, instant coffee, and decaf coffee can all contain different amounts of caffeine.
Although an espresso shot is quite little in volume, espresso contains the most caffeine per volume. Only 75 mg of caffeine is included in a single shot of espresso, which is a lot given that it is 1.5 ounces in size.
Size of serving
The amount of “one cup of coffee” can vary from 30 to 700 ml (1 to 24 oz), considerably altering the total amount of caffeine. The largest size (24 oz) will have the most caffeine content.
