How many calories does coffee have?

Do you want to know how many calories a cup of coffee has? Does coffee cause weight gain or promote weight loss? Should I take into account the calories of coffee if I am following a diet or weight loss regime? These and other questions we will try to answer here, in today’s article. Let’s calculate how many calories a coffee has (approximately).

To begin with, we must take into account that the calories of a coffee can vary according to multiple properties, and especially according to the accompaniment. Sugar, milk of different types, or other additives such as cream, honey or condensed milk can substantially modify the caloric contribution of a drink that, on its own, has a fairly low-calorie level.

We will review in detail the most common cases to know the number of calories that coffee has:

Calories of a black coffee

As we have already mentioned, coffee itself has hardly any calories. The calories of coffee are only 2 Kcal, in the case of a normal-sized cup (say 200 ml).

A black coffee cup (200 ml) = 2 Kcal

Because it is such a low quantity, the calories in coffee will hardly change if we drink a slightly larger than a normal cup or an espresso (much more common) that is shorter than the whole cup. We rarely drink a black coffee with a full cup, do we?

Calories from coffee with sugar

Things change when we start adding ingredients to our coffee. The most common of these is undoubtedly sugar.

If we take the volume of a normal sugar (8 grams of sugar) as a reference, we can assign a total of 32 KCal to this garnish on average. One hundred grams of white sugar provides 400 calories, so the count is simple.

Obviously, the calories of coffee with sugar will vary greatly depending on how sweet you like it: if you put in a whole sugar, half a packet of sugar, two sugars, here you must already control the numbers according to the amount of sugar you eat.

If we take the reference of 1 sugar cube = 32 Kcal, then the calories of a sweetened coffee would be 2 + 32 = 34 Kcal.

A cup of coffee (200 ml) with sugar (8 gr) = 34 Kcal

And watch out, because if we like to drink brown sugar instead of the usual white sugar, the calories in a sweetened latte will also decrease slightly.

Calories from coffee with honey

Honey has fewer calories than sugar, as part of its content is water. If we said before that 100 grams of sugar contain 400 calories, in honey, this figure is about 300 calories per 100 grams (24 calories per 8 grams).

And we must also take into account that honey is usually used in less quantity than sugar since its sweetening effect is greater.

A cup of coffee (200 ml) with honey (8 gr) = 26 Kcal

Calories from a coffee with milk

Several distinctions must be made here because the calories of a normal coffee with milk and sugar are not the same as the calories of coffee with skimmed milk or with semi-skimmed milk.

Generally speaking, let’s take a standard latte preparation as a reference. That is half coffee and half milk (50% both ingredients). Naturally, the calories of the coffee with milk will vary slightly from our calculations depending on the amount of milk added by each consumer.

Half a cup of whole milk has approximately 30 calories. The same amount of semi-skimmed milk provides 20 calories. And this half-cup of skimmed milk, or skimmed milk, has a maximum of 15 calories (half that of whole milk). So, the calories from coffee with milk are as follows:

  • A cup of coffee with whole milk (half milk and half coffee) = 31 Kcal
  • A cup of coffee with semi-skimmed milk = 21 Kcal
  • A cup of coffee with skimmed milk = 16 Kcal

What if we add sugar to the coffee with milk? Then we have the following table:

  • A cup of coffee with whole milk and sugar (8 grams) = 64 Kcal
  • A cup of coffee with semi-skimmed milk and sugar = 54 Kcal
  • A cup of coffee with skimmed milk and sugar = 49 Kcal

As you can see, the number of calories in a coffee grows significantly from the first section of this study, and we now reach 64 calories in a cup if we use whole milk and a normal dose of sugar.

The clear conclusion of this exercise is that coffee has almost no calories. What really increases the number of calories is sugar and milk (especially if it is whole).

Calories from decaffeinated coffee

How many calories does decaffeinated coffee have? If you’ve ever asked yourself this question, we’re telling you to stop worrying. Decaffeinated coffee has the same calories as regular coffee. Only the caffeine content varies, but not the calorie content. So the results we have given are the same, whatever type of coffee we use for the preparation.

NOTE: All the figures given in this study are approximate and may vary depending on the product and the amount of each ingredient used.