So you take the same puck of 0.25 oz of finely ground coffee, but instead of making 0.9 oz of Espresso, you make a more concentrated 0.5 oz (or so). Ristretto is a form of Espresso in which less water is used. Caffeine levels vary depending on the coffee beans, but as a mainstream reference, Espresso made by Starbucks contains approximately 75mg (they use slightly different measurements, however). In a traditional espresso shot, roughly 0.25 oz of grounds are used to create about 0.85 oz of Espresso. Espresso is a method of brewing coffee, by which pressurized water is passed through a compacted 'puck' of fine grounds. Each of the four beverages you referenced is (or contains) Espresso. To start, let's explain the drinks.Įspresso is the key to this whole discussion. how much caffeine in the drink in its entirety. To say which of these has the most caffeine is a little bit complex, as it depends on if you mean how much caffeine per ounce vs. If the movement was restrained: voilá, a ristretto.Ĥ Lungo means 'long' - see details above. Easy to remember if one keeps in mind that in the old espresso machines water was pumped manually with a long lever - one lever 'pump' resulting in one cup of espresso. Perhaps a happy coincidence.)ģ Ristretto means 'restrained'. 'espresso' is the past participle of two italian verbs. (Other sources claim it stands for 'explicitly', meaning a cup that was prepared individually for every single guest or serving. The terms for coffee varieties all contain an ellipsis, effectively omitting the word Caffè (coffee):Ģ Espresso means 'expressed', referring to the preparation method where water is pushed with high pressure through the grounds, as opposed to coffee from a Caffettiera or made by other methods. (This does not consider that all these drinks can be made with double or triple shots, but the math stays the same.)ġFor completeness and as the question came up in comments: According to the Istituto Nazionale Espresso Italiano an espresso is made with 7g coffee per 25ml cup. An americano is an espresso 'thinned' with hot water, resulting in the same caffeine amount than an espresso - because that's what went in.(Typically resulting in more 'bitter' compounds present.) For a lungo 4 it's the other way round, resulting in more caffeine per serving.(But a ristretto is quite aromatic as mostly the quickly soluble compounds get drawn out.) This means the amount of water for one serving will flow through them faster, meaning less caffeine can be extracted. A ristretto 3 uses less (typically: half as much) water than an espresso for the same amount of grounds.Taking an espresso 1 2 as base unit, we can conclude:

Lungo vs ristretto