Natural vs synthetic caffeine: what’s the difference?

The short answer

Natural caffeine is extracted from plants like coffee beans and tea leaves. Synthetic caffeine is manufactured from chemical starting materials. Organic caffeine is natural caffeine from plants grown and handled under organic rules. A label that names its caffeine source tells you which one you’re drinking.

Where caffeine comes from

Caffeine is a compound called 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine. Plants make it. It’s in coffee beans, tea leaves, guaraná and yerba maté, which are exactly the kinds of natural samples scientists used in the study below.^[1]

Natural caffeine is extracted from one of those plants. Synthetic caffeine is manufactured from chemical starting materials instead of grown.

How scientists tell them apart

Labs tell them apart by looking at the carbon inside the caffeine. Carbon comes in a common light form and a slightly heavier form, carbon-13. The ratio between the two differs with the carbon’s origin, so caffeine made by a plant and caffeine made from industrial starting materials carry different fingerprints.

In a 2012 study, researchers measured that fingerprint in 42 natural caffeine samples and 20 synthetic ones. Natural caffeine scored between −25 and −32 on the scale chemists use (δ¹³C, in parts per thousand). Synthetic caffeine scored between −33 and −38. The gap was clear enough to sort drinks.^[1]

The same study found four products containing synthetic caffeine their labels didn’t declare.^[1] So a “natural caffeine” label can be checked in a lab, and some products have failed that check.

What “organic caffeine” means

Organic caffeine is caffeine from a plant grown and handled under organic rules. In the US that’s the USDA National Organic Program, the same system behind the organic seal. Its labeling rules set how much of a product must be organic: at least 95% of ingredients, not counting water and salt, to be called “organic,” and at least 70% to say “made with organic.”^[2]

Synthetic caffeine isn’t grown on a farm, so it can’t be organic. That means “organic caffeine” on a label also tells you the caffeine came from a plant.

We chose organic caffeine because we care how the source plants are farmed, and because a named, organic source is traceable.

What is green coffee bean caffeine?

Green coffee beans are coffee beans before roasting. “Caffeine from green coffee bean” means the caffeine was extracted from those raw beans rather than made in a factory.

All four Romeé flavors use organic caffeine from green coffee beans.

How to read caffeine on a label

• “Caffeine” on its own: the source isn’t stated.
• “Caffeine from green tea” or “from green coffee bean”: a natural source, named.
• Caffeine marked organic: a natural source grown and handled under organic rules.
• The milligrams: how much you’re getting. The FDA cites up to 400 mg a day as an amount not generally associated with negative effects for most healthy adults.^[3] Our caffeine guide has the full breakdown.