Does Cacao Have Caffeine? The Measured Numbers

Yes. Cacao contains caffeine, and it contains considerably more theobromine, a chemically related compound from the same methylxanthine family. In seven commercial cocoa powders analysed by Razola-Díaz and colleagues in Antioxidants in 2023, caffeine ranged from 5.4 to 27.1 mg per gram of dry weight and theobromine from 8.87 to 15.1 mg per gram.

The category answers this question badly in two directions at once. Half the pages say cacao is caffeine-free, which is wrong. The other half quote one number as if cacao were a standardised substance, which is also wrong — the Spanish survey found a fivefold spread in caffeine between powders, and the powders were all sold as the same thing.

What has actually been measured

Three sets of published figures are worth having in front of you. They measure different materials, which is why they disagree, and knowing which is which stops you comparing a powder to a bar.

The 2023 Spanish work analysed five non-alkalised powders (Venezuela, Ivory Coast, Peru, Dominican Republic, West Africa) and two alkalised ones (Ivory Coast, West Africa) by HPLC-DAD. Total methylxanthines ran from 19.4 mg/g in the Dominican Republic powder to 39.15 ± 2.12 mg/g in the Peruvian one. That is a small sample — seven products — and the authors relaxed their significance threshold to p < 0.1 in places because of it. They also note that nutritional information came from product labels and that standardised analytical methods for these compounds are lacking.

Meng, Jalil and Ismail, in Molecules in 2009, tested four brands each of dark, milk and white chocolate bought in Kuala Lumpur, analysed as composites. Dark chocolate came in at 883.11 ± 3.54 mg of theobromine per 100 g, milk chocolate at 125.54 ± 0.98 mg, and white chocolate below the detection limit, which is what you would expect since white chocolate contains cocoa butter and no cocoa solids. Their caveats are worth repeating: four brands from one city, composited samples that hide brand-to-brand variation, a value that disagrees between their text and their table, and a note that milk may bind polyphenols and cause methylxanthines in milk chocolate to be underestimated.

Does cacao have caffeine compared with coffee

Rocha and colleagues, in Nutrients in 2022, compiled a caffeine content table for foods and drinks consumed in Brazil, drawing on a systematic literature search, USDA FoodData Central, manufacturer and label data. Their figures put brewed Arábica coffee at 30 mg per 100 mL, equivalent to 45 mg in a 150 mL cup, and espresso at 279 mg per 100 mL, or 112 mg in a 40 mL cup. Dark chocolate appears at 114 mg per 100 g and cocoa powder at 230 mg per 100 g.

Put in portion terms, 100 g of dark chocolate is a large bar. The same table shows how wide the coffee numbers themselves are: brewed coffee carried a coefficient of variation of 41% with a measured range of 11 to 54 mg per 100 mL, and espresso 52% with a range of 177 to 380. The authors say their dataset "should be applied with caution", note that some values derive from non-Brazilian studies or USDA data, and that the table covers only 57 items.

Theobromine is the compound cacao is actually rich in — the name Theobroma cacao is where it comes from — and it is pharmacologically distinct from caffeine rather than a weaker version of it. Our separate note on how theobromine and caffeine differ in cacao goes further into that, and caffeine in ceremonial cacao preparations covers the drinking format.

Why the numbers move so much

Four things shift methylxanthine content before anything reaches a shelf. Genetics of the tree population. Fermentation and drying at origin. Whether the powder was alkalised. And, for a finished bar, what percentage of it is cocoa solids rather than sugar, milk or cocoa butter.

That last one does most of the work in retail. A 30% milk chocolate and an 85% dark chocolate are the same category on a supermarket shelf and nothing like the same material in a laboratory — the 2009 Malaysian data has dark chocolate at roughly seven times the theobromine of milk chocolate. Percentage on the front of a pack is the single most useful number for predicting methylxanthine content, and it is right there on every bar. For the difference between the starting materials, see raw cacao and cocoa powder.

What is in a Chaski tube

Chaski Cacao is a 600 g tube of dark chocolate buttons at 77% cacao, with a daily dose of four buttons printed on the pack. The cacao is single-origin Peruvian and Ecuadorian, ground at low temperature. The sweetener is coconut sugar; there is no added cane sugar, no emulsifier, no seed oil and no palm oil, and every batch is tested for lead, cadmium and pesticides.

We have not had the caffeine or theobromine content of the tube measured, so we do not publish a figure for it. The published ranges above are for cacao and chocolate as commodities, not for this product, and reading one across to the other would be a guess. The ingredient list and format are on the Chaski Cacao product page; the rest of the library is in our guides.

If a brand quotes you an exact milligram figure for its chocolate, ask whether it came from a laboratory report on that batch or from a table like the ones above.

Sources

1. Razola-Díaz MDC, Aznar-Ramos MJ, Verardo V, Melgar-Locatelli S, Castilla-Ortega E, Rodríguez-Pérez C, Antioxidants, 2023;12(3):716
2. Meng CC, Jalil AMM, Ismail A, Molecules, 2009;14(1):200–209
3. Rocha PLA, Lima ALC, Saunders B, Reis CEG, Nutrients, 2022;14(20):4417