The Popularity of Coffee Flavored Snacks
For many people, the habit of grabbing a morning cup of joe is less because they just love the taste of coffee, and more to do with the fact that they urgently need an energy boost from the caffeine laden beverage. .
However, that is not to say that there aren’t people who just adore the taste and smell of coffee. Some people love coffee so much that it does not concern them how much caffeine they are getting, they just need that distinct coffee flavor in any way they can get it.
This has given rise to the many coffee flavored snacks available.
Coffee cake has, of course, been a popular baked good for the longest time, becoming a favorite comfort food bake for many people. In the past, we have seen coffee flavored cereals, coffee flavored yogurts, coffee flavored gum, and even coffee flavored dental floss!
The coffee craze is well and truly real. However, a favorite coffee flavored snack that seems to have stuck around for the long haul is the wonderful coffee ice cream.
Independent ice cream parlors and huge household ice cream brand names alike have created ice cream with a creamy coffee flavor, each being met with open arms from coffee lovers.
One question that seems to crop up fairly often in the ice cream (and coffee) world is whether coffee ice cream actually contains any coffee. Remember what we said earlier? Some people reach for coffee because they need their caffeine fix.
Others just love the taste of it. Sometimes, people from the latter group, whilst adoring the taste of coffee, cannot handle caffeine in their diet. This leads them to choose caffeine free options. However, luckily lots of popular coffee flavored snacks have 0 caffeine content.
Is this true of ice cream? Is there a coffee ice cream option with 0% caffeine? Or are all of our favorite coffee ice creams filled with caffeine? In this article, we will be exploring whether coffee ice cream does indeed contain caffeine, and if so, how much it has.
We will also be looking at whether the levels of caffeine in coffee ice cream (if any) will be safe for those trying to avoid caffeine.
In order to better understand the caffeine content of coffee ice cream, we must first explore caffeine consumption in general, looking at how much is in a regular cup of coffee so we can compare that to coffee ice cream.
Caffeine consumption
To begin this section, we want to make clear that the amount of caffeine that is recommended for human consumption per day is 300 milligrams (mg). Of course, lots of people have much more than this, and some people barely get any.
To put this into perspective, the average cup of brewed coffee is around 8 ounces in volume. Typically the caffeine content of an 8 ounce coffee is 95 mg. This means that after 3 cups of regular sized coffees, you will have reached your daily allowance.
As we said, lots of people go way over this. Heck, sometimes we hit that limit before lunchtime! These statistics are not meant to judge you though, they are merely in place so we can use them as a comparison when looking at the caffeine content in coffee ice cream (if any).
Keep on reading to the next section to find out more….
Coffee ice cream: is it caffeinated?
Before we go any further we want to start by pointing out that there are likely hundreds, maybe even thousands of different types of coffee ice cream out there, and so it can be hard to give you a definite answer to this question.
The fact is, some coffee ice creams may not use any actual coffee at all, preferring to use synthetic flavorings. Other coffee ice creams may be made using super strong espresso. This will, of course, have a direct effect on the caffeine content of any given coffee ice cream.
To answer this question as fairly as possible, we will be looking at some of the most popular and well known brands of coffee ice cream available, giving you a rundown of their caffeine content.
Suffice to say that coffee ice cream can indeed have caffeine content. Through our research, though, we have found that this varies a huge amount from brand to brand.
For example, one of the most popular brands that create coffee ice cream is Häagen-Dazs. They have a recommended serving size of 4 ounces. In 4 ounces of their coffee ice cream, there is around 29 mg of caffeine.
This is far less than a cup of coffee has, and so in order to reach even a third of your daily limit, you would have to eat a fair amount of Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream.
However, in comparison, another popular brand that creates a coffee flavored ice cream is Talenti. Their Cold Brew Sorbetto has almost zero caffeine content.
Likewise, Talenti also does a wonderful Chocolate Chip Coffee Ice Cream that boasts a very low caffeine content. Both of these flavors come in at just .002mg of caffeine per serving (their recommended serving is two-thirds of a cup).
These extremely low figures mean that you can enjoy the gorgeous coffee flavor even at night, without the worry of being awake and energized for hours.
In fact, throughout all of our research, we found that whilst coffee ice cream does indeed have a caffeine content, the levels of caffeine were so small that most people could happily enjoy these coffee flavored treats without worrying about the after effects of caffeine!
Final Verdict
So, to answer the question posed at the start of the article: “does coffee ice cream have caffeine?” we are confident in reporting that it does indeed have a caffeine content.
Our research showed us that the caffeine content of coffee ice cream depends wholly on the brand of ice cream. There is no set amount of caffeine that needs to be in coffee ice cream.
Indeed, some coffee ice creams do not contain any coffee at all, due to them using synthetic flavorings to achieve the coffee taste. Other ice creams use strong coffee, providing a modest amount of caffeine.
What remains clear is that even in those coffee ice creams that have slightly higher amounts of caffeine, in general, they are still far lower than that of a regular cup of coffee or shot of espresso, meaning that to achieve even a third of the recommended daily amount, you would need to consume a lot of ice cream!
We hope that this article has answered your question and that you have learned all you could possibly want to know about the caffeine content of coffee ice cream!