How much caffeine a day is safe?

The point where you start wondering

Nobody counts the first coffee. You start counting somewhere around the fourth — usually a bad afternoon, a deadline, a cup you hadn't planned on. That's when the question arrives: is this actually too much?

For a healthy adult the answer is around 400 mg a day. That's about four coffees, and it's the figure European food safety bodies work with. If your day is two in the morning and one after lunch, you're comfortably inside it and always have been.

What your day looks like in milligrams

• Espresso (60 ml): around 80 mg
• Filter coffee (200 ml): around 90 mg
• Instant coffee (200 ml): around 60 mg
• Energy drink (250 ml): around 80 mg
• Black tea (200 ml): around 45 mg
• SmartyCoffee (one serving): 100 mg

The surprise is rarely the coffee. It's everything else. Tea counts. Cola counts. Dark chocolate counts. A day that feels like two coffees is quietly three.

The single cup matters more than the daily total

There's a second number that gets far less attention: about 200 mg at once. The daily total is the long game. The single cup is how you feel in the next hour — and 200 mg in one go is roughly where the jitters, the fluttery heartbeat and that thin, wired feeling tend to start.

A large takeaway coffee can carry that on its own. Which is why the same amount spread across a day feels like an entirely different substance from the same amount in one cup.

When the number should be lower

• Pregnancy and breastfeeding: about half the usual figure, so around 200 mg a day.
• Children and teenagers: scaled to body weight, which lands far below the adult number.
• Heart rhythm problems, anxiety disorders, or medication that interacts with caffeine: that's a conversation with your doctor, not a chart.

Where one SmartyCoffee sits

One serving is 100 mg — a quarter of the day's room, half of what's comfortable in a single cup. That was deliberate. It leaves space for the coffee you'll have with someone later, and it's the reason the caffeine comes paired with L-theanine and taurine rather than simply being pushed higher. And it's exactly 100 mg every time: we top the Arabica up with pure caffeine until it gets there, so the strength doesn't depend on how today's brew turned out. You always know what you're counting.

This is general information, not medical advice. If you have a health condition or take medication, ask your doctor.