Almost nobody chooses matcha in isolation. They choose it instead of coffee, or alongside a chai, or after picking up the wrong green powder in a shop. These pages answer the comparison directly — what is in each drink, how much caffeine it carries, what it tastes like, and which one to pick for the situation you are actually in.
The short answer
Matcha sits in the upper-middle of the caffeine range at roughly 60–70 mg per 2 g serving — below drip coffee and yerba mate, above sencha and a café chai latte, and far above hojicha. What separates it from all of them is L-theanine: 20–40 mg per serving, which slows caffeine's onset and flattens its peak. Moringa and maca are not teas at all and contain no caffeine.
Ranked highest to lowest. Servings are the ones people actually pour, not a standardised 100 ml — a comparison in equal volumes would mislead, because nobody drinks 100 ml of drip coffee or 100 ml of matcha.
| Drink | Serving | Caffeine | L-theanine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matcha | 2 g bowl | ≈60–70 mg | 20–40 mg |
| Coffee (drip) | 240 ml | ≈95 mg | None |
| Yerba mate | 150 ml | ≈80 mg | Negligible |
| Chai latte | 12 oz, café | ≈30–50 mg | Low |
| Sencha | 200 ml steeped | ≈30–50 mg | Low–moderate |
| Hojicha | 200 ml steeped | ≈7–20 mg | Low |
| Moringa | 1–2 tsp | None | None |
| Maca | 1–3 tsp | None | None |
All figures are typical values and every one of these drinks varies with cultivar, harvest, grind and how strongly you make it. Treat them as a ranking rather than as a dose.
Matcha looks alarming by weight — gram for gram it carries more caffeine than coffee beans. But you brew 15 g of coffee and whisk 2 g of matcha, so the cup tells a different story from the bag. Any comparison that does not state its serving size is not telling you anything useful.
Two drinks with identical caffeine can feel nothing alike. L-theanine, which matcha has in quantity and coffee and yerba mate have essentially none of, slows absorption and blunts the peak. If your problem with coffee is jitters rather than dose, switching to a drink with the same dose and no L-theanine will not help.
A chai latte poured from a sweetened concentrate carries 25–40 g of sugar before anyone adds syrup, and pre-blended matcha powders are frequently sugar-first on the ingredient list too. When you compare two menu items, you are often comparing two sugar loads with some tea in them.
Coffee, per standard serving — roughly 95 mg in a 240 ml drip coffee against 60–70 mg in a 2 g bowl of matcha. What differs more than the amount is the delivery: matcha carries 20–40 mg of L-theanine, which slows caffeine's absorption and softens its peak, so the same nominal dose feels steadier and lasts longer.
Among true teas, hojicha — roasting drives its caffeine down to roughly 7–20 mg per cup, which is why it is traditionally drunk in the evening and given to children in Japan. If you want none at all, moringa and maca are caffeine-free, but neither is a tea and neither tastes anything like matcha.
Moringa and maca are the two most often mistaken for it. Moringa is a dried leaf vegetable — green, but caffeine-free and much more vegetal. Maca is an Andean root and is beige-brown rather than green, so the colour alone tells you. Neither is related to the tea plant.
Not quite. It is the same plant, but matcha is shade-grown for three to four weeks before harvest, which raises its L-theanine and chlorophyll, then stone-ground so you consume the whole leaf instead of steeping and discarding it. That means more caffeine, more catechins and a fuller body than any steeped green tea.
Yerba mate, comfortably — it is among the cheapest caffeinated drinks per serving, and one charge of leaf serves an entire session. Matcha is the most expensive of the group per gram, because only shade-grown leaf with stems and veins removed is worth stone-grinding.
Figures on this page are drawn from the following. Each was last opened and verified on the date shown — if one has moved or changed, please tell us.
The Ultimate Matcha Guide
$4.99$10launch
