What the "high caffeine content" label means

The statement “High caffeine content. Not recommended for children or pregnant or breast-feeding women.” is required by EU regulation 1169/2011, in force since December 2014. It applies to any drink above 150 mg of caffeine per litre — except tea and coffee, explicitly exempted.

Which is where the statement misleads if you read it as a ranking: an espresso runs at about 1,500 mg per litre, ten times the threshold, and carries nothing.

Drink	Caffeine per litre	Carries the statement?
Espresso	~1,500 mg	No — exempt
Filter coffee	~500 mg	No — exempt
Energy shot (60 ml)	~3,300 mg	Yes
Red Bull, Monster	~320 mg	Yes
Regulatory threshold	150 mg
Coca-Cola	~97 mg	No — below threshold
Brewed tea	~200 mg	No — exempt

What the statement actually sorts

Not doses: categories. The legislator took the view that coffee and tea are drinks whose caffeinated character is universally understood, and that a warning on a bag of coffee would tell nobody anything. The point of the text lies elsewhere: to flag caffeine where you don’t expect it, in drinks that look like soft drinks.

That’s coherent as public policy, and it explains the apparent paradox. The can carrying the warning often holds less caffeine per litre than the coffee carrying none. It carries it because it belongs to the targeted category, not because it’s more loaded.

In other words: the absence of the statement does not mean “little caffeine”. It means “tea, coffee, or below the threshold”.

The genuinely useful part: the number

This is the bit everyone skips, and the only one that yields usable information. The statement must be followed by the product’s caffeine content, expressed in milligrams per 100 ml.

On a can of Red Bull that reads 32 mg/100 ml. On an energy shot it can reach 330 mg/100 ml. Multiply by your container’s volume and you have the exact dose, without looking anything up.

It’s often the only precise figure printed on the pack, because caffeine doesn’t appear in the mandatory nutrition table. On a drink that carries no statement, you generally get no figure at all.

Reading a label in ten seconds

Three moves, in this order:

• Look for the statement. If it’s there you’re above 150 mg/L, and the exact figure follows immediately.
• If it isn’t, look for “caffeine” in the ingredients. A drink can contain some below the threshold — every cola does — and will then carry nothing at all.
• Multiply by your volume. 32 mg/100 ml on a 250 ml can is 80 mg; on 473 ml it’s 151 mg. The printed figure is never the whole can.

That last point is the commonest trap. The statement is expressed per 100 ml, never per container, and a large format multiplies everything.

The drinks that surprise you

Once you know to look for it, the statement turns up in unexpected places. It has become the best available clue to added caffeine in products that don’t look the part:

• “Energy” iced teas and some fortified bottled teas, which cross the threshold where a brewed tea wouldn’t trigger it — the exemption covers tea as such, not a tea-based drink with caffeine added to it.
• Flavoured waters and energy lemonades, which look entirely unremarkable on a shelf.
• Sports recovery drinks and certain athletic preparations.

Conversely, a ready-to-drink bottled tea or coffee isn’t automatically exempt: it depends on how the product is categorised. When the statement is there, it settles the question.

What about foods?

The same regulation covers solid foods to which caffeine has been added — bars, chewing gum, supplements. They must carry an equivalent statement, with the content in milligrams per 100 g.

Chocolate isn’t covered: its caffeine occurs naturally in cocoa rather than being added. That’s why no bar carries a warning, even though two squares of dark chocolate deliver around twenty milligrams.

What the statement doesn’t say

It doesn’t say a drink is dangerous, and it says nothing about the dose you will absorb. It’s a concentration threshold, applied to a category of products, with identical wording for everyone.

For consumption reference points, look elsewhere: the European figures of 400 mg a day and 200 mg in a single sitting are covered in how much caffeine per day, and the French agency’s positions in what ANSES says about caffeine.

What to take away

The statement flags a category, not a dose. It appears above 150 mg per litre on anything that isn’t tea or coffee — hence energy drinks labelled at 320 mg/L while an espresso at 1,500 mg/L passes without a word.

Its real value is the number that follows it: milligrams per 100 ml, often the only quantified data on the entire pack. Note it, multiply by your can’s volume, and you know exactly what you’re drinking. For the rest, the full table is in caffeine content by drink.

CaffIQ does that multiplication for you and adds it to your day — because a per-100 ml figure on a 473 ml can isn’t information anyone can use on the spot.

CaffIQ provides general estimates, not medical advice. For any health question, talk to a qualified professional.