Yes. Oolong tea contains caffeine, typically somewhere around 30 to 60 mg in an 8 oz (240 ml) cup, which puts it between most green teas and most black teas. That ordering is far looser than the internet suggests, though. Two cups of the same oolong can differ by a factor of two depending on how you brewed them.
The short version
- Oolong is caffeinated. It comes from Camellia sinensis, and nothing from that plant is caffeine-free.
- A typical 8 oz cup lands roughly in the 30 to 60 mg range. Brewed coffee is two to three times that.
- The tidy green-then-oolong-then-black ladder holds up on average and falls apart for any single cup.
- How you brew moves caffeine more than the category does: temperature, steep time and leaf quantity do most of the work.
- Later steeps carry less caffeine than the first. But a 30-second rinse does not decaffeinate tea.
In this post
- Does oolong tea have caffeine?
- How much caffeine is in oolong tea?
- Oolong vs green, black, white, pu-erh and coffee
- Why brewing moves caffeine more than the leaf does
- Do second and third steeps have less caffeine?
- The 30-second rinse myth
- Light vs dark roast Tie Guan Yin
- How much is too much, and drinking it late
- FAQ
Does oolong tea have caffeine?
Yes, and there is no version of it that doesn't. Oolong comes from Camellia sinensis, the same plant behind green tea, black tea, white tea and pu-erh. The plant makes caffeine in its leaves and buds, and processing is not good at removing it.
What separates oolong from the others is oxidation, the enzymatic browning that starts when the leaf is bruised. Green tea is heated early to stop it, black tea runs to completion, and oolong is halted somewhere in the middle, anywhere from about 15% to 80% depending on the style. Oxidation rearranges the polyphenols in the leaf. It does not create or destroy caffeine in any meaningful amount. So the tidy story where caffeine climbs steadily as the leaf gets darker has the mechanism wrong from the first sentence. Liquor colour is not a caffeine gauge.
Decaffeinated oolong exists, made by treating finished leaf with carbon dioxide or a solvent, and it is not caffeine-free either. The FDA notes decaf coffee typically still carries 2 to 15 mg per 8 oz cup, and decaf tea behaves the same way.
How much caffeine is in oolong tea?
Roughly 30 to 60 mg per 8 oz cup is the honest working range, and I would rather give a range than fake precision. Published figures scatter widely, because they measure different cultivars brewed by different people.
The arithmetic behind it: tea leaf is commonly cited at 2% to 4% caffeine by dry weight, so 3 g in a mug loads perhaps 60 to 120 mg into the vessel. You will not extract all of that in three minutes, and you are not eating the leaf. Extract around half and you land in the 30 to 60 mg band.
What pushes an oolong up the range: bud-heavy young leaf, since the plant concentrates caffeine in new growth, and a generous hand with the leaf. What pushes it down: mature leaf, which much traditional oolong is deliberately picked at, cooler water, a short steep.
Oolong vs green, black, white, pu-erh and coffee
Every number below is a range, and every range overlaps its neighbours. Anyone giving you a single figure per tea type is giving you a number that was true once, for one cup, in one lab.
| Drink (per 8 oz / 240 ml) | Typical caffeine range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Oolong (Tie Guan Yin, Da Hong Pao) | roughly 30–60 mg | Middle of the pack on average, wildly variable cup to cup |
| Green (Longjing, Biluochun) | roughly 20–45 mg | FDA quotes green tea at about 37 mg per 12 oz, near 25 mg at 8 oz |
| Black (Dianhong, Keemun) | roughly 40–70 mg | FDA quotes black tea at about 71 mg per 12 oz, near 47 mg at 8 oz |
| White (Moonlight White, Silver Needle) | roughly 15–55 mg | The widest spread of the lot. Bud-only whites can out-caffeinate a green |
| Pu-erh (sheng and shou) | roughly 30–70 mg | Big-leaf Yunnan material, and people tend to brew it hard |
| Brewed coffee | roughly 80–165 mg | Commonly quoted near 95 mg for a standard 8 oz cup |
| Decaf tea or coffee | a few mg, never zero | Reduced, not removed |
Look at what that table actually says. Oolong's band sits inside black tea's and on top of green tea's. A firmly brewed green beats a gently brewed black, comfortably, every time. The ladder that ranks tea types by caffeine is a rule of thumb people promoted into a law of nature, and it misleads more drinkers than it helps.
The one comparison you can lean on is tea against coffee. That gap is real and large: two or three cups of oolong to match a single mug of drip coffee. Mayo Clinic keeps a plain-language caffeine chart for common drinks if you want a second reference point.
Why brewing moves caffeine more than the leaf does
This is the part most articles skip, and the part that changes your afternoon. Caffeine is highly water-soluble and extracts quickly, which makes your kettle and timer more powerful than your choice of tea.
| Variable | Change it like this | What happens to caffeine in the cup | Size of effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water temperature | 100°C instead of 80°C | Extracts faster and further | Large |
| Steep time | 4 minutes instead of 1 | More out of the leaf, though the curve flattens | Large |
| Leaf quantity | 5 g instead of 2.5 g per mug | Roughly proportional increase | Large |
| Leaf material | Buds and young leaf instead of mature leaf | More caffeine in the leaf to begin with | Moderate |
| Leaf size | Broken or teabag dust instead of whole leaf | More surface area, faster extraction | Moderate |
| Which steep | Fourth infusion instead of first | Noticeably less, the first steep takes the biggest share | Large per cup |
| Gongfu vs Western | 6 g per 100 ml at 15 s, vs 3 g per 250 ml at 3 min | Less per small cup, more across a whole session | Depends how long you sit there |
| Cold brew | Fridge for 8 hours instead of hot water | Generally less, though a long steep with heavy leaf closes the gap | Moderate |
Run two of those together and the effect swamps the category difference. A 90-second steep of oolong at 85°C with 2 g of leaf hands you less caffeine than a four-minute steep of green tea at a rolling boil with 4 g. Opposite result from what the ladder predicted.
One correction while I am here. People say gongfu means less caffeine because the steeps are seconds long, and per tiny cup that is true. But you are using twice the leaf, and over eight or ten infusions you drink most of what was in it. A gongfu session is not a low-caffeine option. It is a slow-release one.
Do second and third steeps have less caffeine?
Yes, and this one is mostly true rather than partly true. Caffeine dissolves fast, faster than many of the compounds responsible for body and astringency, so the first infusion pulls the largest single share.
How much less depends on that first steep. Brew western style for four minutes and you took out a lot, so the second cup is lighter on caffeine as well as flavour. Brew gongfu with a fifteen-second first steep and plenty is still in the leaf, so steeps two through four keep delivering.
What nobody should tell you is that later steeps are caffeine-free. A fourth infusion still has caffeine in it, just less. If you are sensitive enough that a small dose matters, count the session rather than the cup.
The 30-second rinse myth
The claim goes like this: pour hot water on your leaves, wait twenty or thirty seconds, throw that liquid away, and you have washed most of the caffeine out. It has been repeated in tea shops and on packaging for decades. It is not true, and I would rather say so plainly than let it sit.
Published attempts to measure this find a short rinse removes a modest fraction of the caffeine, not most of it. Extraction is a curve, not a switch. Getting the majority out would take several minutes of hot steeping, by which point you have poured away the tea and kept a pale, hollow cup that still has caffeine in it.
Rinse for the reasons that hold up. Tightly rolled oolong opens more evenly after a quick wake-up pour, aged and compressed teas shed dust, the vessel warms. Just don't count it as a caffeine strategy, and don't buy from anyone who sells it as one. The same goes for scented teas, which I covered in does jasmine tea have caffeine.
Light vs dark roast Tie Guan Yin
Roasting is a major variable in oolong, and Tie Guan Yin is where you see it clearest. Green-style Tie Guan Yin is lightly oxidised and barely roasted, all orchid and cream. Traditional-style is charcoal-roasted until it goes dark, nutty and toasty. Same garden, same week, two teas that taste unrelated.
What people get wrong: roasting does not burn off much caffeine. Caffeine is stable at the temperatures and durations used to roast tea, so a dark roast and a light roast from the same batch start out close.
What does change is the kettle. Roasted oolongs want boiling water; light ones are brewed nearer 90°C, and boiling water extracts more. So the dark roast may well deliver more caffeine, not because of the fire but because of how you brew it. For heavy-roast flavour with a lighter load, cut the leaf and keep steeps short rather than dropping the temperature, which only makes a roasted tea taste flat.
Our own Tie Guan Yin is the lighter, floral style, picked in Anxi and rolled into tight green pellets. The full Tieguanyin explainer covers the cultivar; the complete guide to oolong tea covers the wider category.
How much is too much, and drinking it late
The reference point most people use: the FDA has cited 400 mg a day as an amount not generally associated with negative effects for most healthy adults, while noting that sensitivity varies a great deal between people. At the ranges above, that is seven to twelve cups of oolong. For most tea drinkers, caffeine is not the constraint. Bladder capacity is.
That average hides a lot. People clear caffeine at very different speeds, and the commonly quoted half-life of four to six hours is itself an average with a wide spread. If you are pregnant, taking medication, or you already react strongly, ask your doctor rather than a tea shop.
The reason I care about any of this: I used to drink a strong pot of roasted Tie Guan Yin at nine in the evening and then lie there being annoyed with myself. My grandfather drank oolong all day out of a lidded cup he topped up from a flask, and slept like a stone. Same tea, different constitution. Most of the real answer here is not about the leaf at all.
If you want oolong late, use the levers in the brewing table. Half the leaf. A one-minute steep. Take the second and third infusions and leave the first for the morning. We do not sell a caffeine-free herbal, so if you need zero, buy one from someone who does.
FAQ
Does oolong tea have caffeine?
Yes. Oolong is made from Camellia sinensis and always contains caffeine, typically around 30 to 60 mg per 8 oz cup. Oxidation changes flavour and colour but not caffeine content in any meaningful way. Even decaffeinated oolong retains a small residual amount.
How much caffeine is in oolong tea compared to coffee?
An 8 oz cup of oolong typically holds roughly 30 to 60 mg, while the same volume of brewed coffee runs somewhere between 80 and 165 mg. In practice you need two or three cups of oolong to match one mug of drip coffee.
Does oolong tea have more caffeine than green tea?
On average, slightly. In any given cup, not reliably. Oolong tends to land around 30 to 60 mg and green tea around 20 to 45 mg, so the ranges overlap heavily. A strongly brewed green tea will beat a gently brewed oolong without difficulty.
Does resteeping oolong remove the caffeine?
It reduces it. Caffeine is highly water-soluble, so the first infusion pulls the largest single share and each later steep gives less. It never reaches zero. A fourth infusion of good oolong still carries caffeine, and a gongfu session adds up across cups.
Is oolong tea OK to drink at night?
That depends entirely on you. Some people drink oolong after dinner without noticing anything; others feel a small dose for hours. If you want to try, use half the usual leaf, keep the steep under a minute, and skip the first infusion, which carries the most caffeine.
Want to test these variables on a real leaf? Our Tie Guan Yin comes straight from Anxi, screened for pesticides and heavy metals.