High Caffeine Teas

Whether you're a coffee drinker who has switched (or wants to switch) to tea, or you just like bold flavors, strong black teas, the so-called breakfast teas, can be a great option if you're looking for a wake-me-up.

These teas include blends like English Breakfast and Irish Breakfast, and less commonly, Scottish Breakfast, or other teas marketed in this way, like Tazo Awake.  One of my favorites is Rishi Tea's China Breakfast.  If you buy blends marketed as breakfast teas, you're pretty sure to get a good caffeine kick from your purchase, in large part because these blends are chosen to have a high caffeine content.

Strong single-origin teas of similar character:

If you want to buy single-origin teas or single-region teas with a similar character, I recommend checking out Assam, Yunnan (Dian Hong), or Kenya black teas, although some Ceylon teas are also similarly strong.  To make sure you get a good caffeine kick, I recommend seeking out tippy teas.  Tippy teas are labelled "tippy" or given a grade with T in it, such as TGFOP or FTGFOP.

Not everyone likes the stronger-flavored black teas like English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast.  The good news is that you can still get just as much of a caffeine content in a milder cup of black tea.  These milder teas are often "low tannin", and some people find them easier to drink and milder on the stomach.

Darjeeling black tea tends to be the lightest of widely available black teas.   Although most Darjeelings tend to be lighter than average, Darjeeling first flush, harvested in the spring, tends to be lighest of all.  High grades of Darjeeling will tend to be strongly caffeinated.  Teas from surrounding regions, including Nepal, Sikkim, and Jalpaiguri, tend to be similar.

In China, Yunnan Pure Gold, and Golden Monkey (from Fujian) are two golden-colored black teas that tend to be lower tannin and milder in flavor, but high in caffeine, due to consisting mostly or exclusively from leaf tips.

If you want a recommendation, I'd point to the Darjeeling first flush teas sold by Happy Earth Tea for very light, low-tannin, high-caffeine teas.

There is a widespread myth in our culture that green tea is lower in caffeine than black tea.  This is simply not true: the caffeine content varies widely from one tea to the next.  My page on White Tea and Caffeine: Myths and Reality explains this further.  Below are some examples of green teas, both Chinese and Japanese in origin, which have a higher caffeine content:

• Gyokuro Green Tea - Gyokuro is one of the highest-grade Japanese teas, which often has a vegetal aroma and flavor, almost suggestive of spinach.  It has a very involved production process which involves shading the leaves for several weeks before harvest.  Gyokuro tends to be quite high in caffeine, and also is among the teas highest in L-theanine, a chemical that makes the same levels of caffeine provide a greater boost to alertness.  This tea is pricey, but it provides one of the biggest boosts to alertness and concentration that you can find in a green tea.  I like Harney and Sons' Gyokuro.
• Silver Needle White Tea - Silver needle, or bai hao yinzhen, is a highest grade of Chinese white tea, made exclusively from tips or leaf buds.  The dry leaf has a fuzzy, silvery appearance, and it produces a very mild flavored cup that has a sweet flavor and an aroma suggestive of melon and flowers.  Because the tips are highest in caffeine, this tea tends to be very high in caffeine--stronger than even most breakfast teas.  One of my favorite silver needle teas is actually produced in Tanzania; you can buy it from Teas Etc.

For citations and a more thorough explanation of why these teas have so much caffeine, and what influences the caffeine content of tea in general, I recommend visiting an article I maintain on RateTea on the caffeine content of tea.

For general info on caffeine, I also recommend caffeine on Wikipedia and the NIH page on caffeine.