The 10 Strongest Coffee Brands In The World

Are you looking for the biggest caffeine jolt possible? Then, you’ve come to the right place.

We’re going to go over the strongest coffee available on the international market. So get ready to get your socks knocked off by the high-caffeine coffee brands on this list.

A word of warning: if you’re sensitive to caffeine, you’ll want to avoid these coffees or approach them with caution.

What Is Strong Coffee?

But first, what is strong coffee? 

There are a lot of ways to look at the strength of coffee.

When some coffee drinkers say they love strong coffee, they’re talking about the caffeine content. They want coffee that has an extra hit of caffeine per mug that will keep them awake.

Other coffee drinkers want extra flavor from their coffee. For them, strong coffee is a bold, full-bodied coffee (regardless of the caffeine per serving).

Caffeine Content

How much caffeine is in your brew is a highly debated subject.

You can get more caffeine per mug with these variables:

Brewing method – immersion methods extract more caffeine per serving because the coffee grounds are sitting in the water.

Brewing time – a longer brewing time keeps the ground in contact with water for longer and creates a more caffeinated drink.

Ratio – using more coffee grounds obviously puts more caffeine in your cup.

Type of coffee – The two main species of coffee, Arabica, and Robusta, are quite different when it comes to caffeine content. Robusta coffee beans have more caffeine per gram than Arabica, generally about double the amount.

Bold Flavors

At times, bold flavors are determined by the roast, the brewing method, or how much coffee was used to brew a serving.

Related Read: Popular Brewing Methods

A dark roast will often give bold flavors. You might find a strong chocolate undertone or a smoky taste in dark roasted beans.

Coffees brewed in certain methods, such as a French Press, can feel stronger. When a brewing method doesn’t use a paper filter, the coffee oils stay in the brew. That gives the mouthfeel of a heavier, bolder coffee.

In general, bold flavors in coffee come from the coffee to water ratio. The coffee to water ratio has a big impact on how strong the brew is.

Obviously, if you add more coffee grinds to the same amount of water, you’ll get stronger tastes. You might want to be careful with this, though, because coffee can easily become quite bitter.

In this post, I’m talking about coffee strength in terms of caffeine content.

10 Strongest Coffee Brands 2024 By Caffeine Content

1. Black Label Coffee

This Black Label, high-powered coffee, is produced by The Devil Mountain Coffee Company. 

They consider themselves to have the world’s strongest coffee, and by all accounts, it seems they’re right. As I mentioned, they’re talking about the caffeine per milligram.

How much caffeine per milligram does the world’s strongest coffee have? Black Label boasts 1,555 mg of caffeine per 12 ounces of brewed coffee. That’s one caffeinated coffee!

They consider their coffee to be grown at high altitudes and in volcanic soil, two factors that contribute to less bitterness even with all that caffeine per mug.

The coffee also boasts a USDA organic seal, which additionally means it’s non-GMO. No GMO additives were used in roasting or packaging the coffee. 

Additionally, the coffee is vegan and gluten-free. Again, they’re commenting on additives that some coffee companies may put in their coffee.

They are also the official coffee sponsor of the Sonoma raceway, contributing to the caffeine-means-speed image of the company.

Is 1,555 mg of caffeine per mug a safe amount for one person to consume? I talk about that at the end of the post.

**Caffeine Content Per Cup: 1,555 MG caffeine per 12-ounce cup**

2. Very Strong Robusta Coffee Beans

Very Strong Coffee lets you know what it’s about with just the name. They boast that it’s the strongest coffee in the UK.

And it is strong. At 1,350 mg per 12-ounce serving, it’ll get you several times the amount of caffeine than a regular brand could provide.

How do they get the coffee so strong? It’s made with 100% Robusta beans. As we talked about, these beans have double the caffeine per mug than Arabica beans.

That results in a potent brew with potent aromas. So if you’re looking for a rich, intense cup of coffee, this brand may be for you.

But it does come with a warning label. Consume this brew only if you’re sure the extra kick of caffeine per mug won’t ruin your day instead of powering it.

**Caffeine Content Per Cup: 1,350 MG caffeine per 12-ounce cup**

3. Black Insomnia Coffee

Black Insomnia Coffee goes beyond just strength. 

They do have the strength, of course, or they wouldn’t be on this list. At 1,105 mg of caffeine per mug, they pack in quite a bit more than a regular serving of coffee.

But Black Insomnia Coffee also adds a flavor element.

They boast that their beans have caramel, hazelnut, and macadamia aromas. A dark chocolate flavor. That sounds good, and they achieve it with no additional ingredients – those are the natural tastes in the coffee.

They roast the beans carefully to avoid the bitterness or burnt tastes you can often get in dark roasted beans. They market these smooth flavors for hackers and late-night coders in case you need to do an all-nighter.

They recommend a ratio of 1:17 and sell a one-pound whole bean option, so this is a good high-caffeine choice if you like to grind your own coffee.

**Caffeine Content Per Cup: 1,105 MG caffeine per 12-ounce cup**

4. Biohazard Coffee

If you’re cramming for exams or trying to recover from a tough weekend, Biohazard Coffee might just be for you.

This organic coffee has real power at 928 mg per 12-ounce serving and is geared towards college students and gamers.

They achieve this amount of caffeine with Robusta, but they avoid the bitter and harsh tastes you’ll find in other brands.

And if you’re more interested in a brew that’s strong in flavors, dark roasted coffee will give you that flavor kick. They sell it ground in one pound or five-pound bags.

**Caffeine Content Per Cup: 928 MG caffeine per 12-ounce cup**

5. Death Wish Coffee Co

Perhaps one of the most popular coffees on Amazon, Death Wish Coffee Company started the hyper-caffeine trend.

Death Wish is a blend of beans, which provides a bold but smoother taste than some other high-caffeine coffees.

That blend gives it a hint of cherry and chocolate flavors. It does have a lower caffeine rate, but it’s still quite a bit higher than your regular cup of joe.

Death Wish has a USDA organic deal on the bag, offer a money-back guarantee, and they offer their ground, Fair Trade coffee in one pound or five-pound bags.

Related Read: Death Wish Caffeine Content

**Caffeine Content Per Cup: 728 MG caffeine per 12-ounce cup**

6. Red Goat Coffee

Red Goat Coffee offers its high caffeine kick in 16-ounce bags of ground or whole bean coffee. They are also one of the few high-caffeine brands that also have K Cup pods.

Red Goat boasts 23.9 mg of caffeine per gram of coffee. Depending on how you brew it, that might mean about 650 mg of caffeine.

**Caffeine Content Per Cup: 650 MG caffeine per 12-ounce cup**

7. Banned Coffee

According to Banned Coffee, their product is perfect for you if you arm wrestle gorillas. Apparently, that hasn’t eliminated their customer base because they’re one of the most popular coffees on this list.

They carefully roast the coffee to avoid smokey or bitter tastes. That lets the chocolate and berry notes come through with low acidity. The mix of Arabica with Robusta beans adds to the heavy body.

Banned Coffee excels in its wide range of purchasing choices. You can get these medium-dark roasted beans in all of these presentations:

• Ground
• Whole Bean
• Keurig K-Cups
• Reusable K-Cup for Keurig machines
• Gift sets
• 10 ounce
• 12 ounce
• 16 ounce
• 32 ounce and
• Pumpkin spice

**Caffeine Content Per Cup: 474 MG caffeine per 12-ounce cup**

8. Shock Coffee

Shock Coffee wants you to focus better and be stronger while drinking their coffee. While they don’t have the strongest one on this list, they boast of having 50% more caffeine than a regular cup of joe.

These medium-dark roasted beans are smooth and strong-tasting, using South American Robusta and Arabica beans. 

They didn’t add any additional caffeine, just what comes in the beans. Their claim of more caffeine isn’t backed up with an exact caffeine count.

You can buy Shock Coffee in whole bean 1 pound bags.

**Caffeine Content Per Cup: about 250 MG caffeine per 12-ounce cup**

9. Wake The Hell Up

As you can tell from the name of this coffee, Wake The Hell Up is all about attitude. Their medium-dark roasted beans are from Central and South America. They pack it in 12-ounce or 24-ounce bags.

However, they don’t discuss just how much caffeine is in their coffee, so you might want to drink it just for the flavors.         

**Caffeine Content Per Cup: the MG of caffeine per serving is a mystery**

10. Hardcore Coffee

Hardcore Coffee is geared towards those tough coffee drinkers that want extra caffeine, a bold aroma, and a nutty taste.

They are cheaper than other brands, and their ground coffee option comes with a USDA Organic seal on the label. However, they’re not specific about how much caffeine is in their coffee.

**Caffeine Content Per Cup: the MG of caffeine per cup is a mystery**

The Strong Coffee Buying Guide 

How Strong Is Strong Coffee?

To get a good idea of how strong coffee can get, it’s good to consider how strong “normal” coffee is.

Per serving, you can expect these amounts of caffeine:

• A regular drip cup of coffee has anywhere from 65-120 mg
• One ounce of espresso has about 50-75 mg
• High caffeine coffee can have anywhere from 200 to 1550 mg

In general terms, a regular 12-ounce cup of coffee has about 100 mg.

The brands on this list can top 1,500 mg of caffeine per large cup of joe, a 12-ounce serving. That’s a huge jolt of caffeine from just one mug.

Let’s talk for a minute about what’s healthy. You’ve probably heard that caffeine is considered a drug. And overdosing on caffeine can have serious consequences – people have even died of caffeine overdoses.

To overdose on caffeine, though, you’d need to consume about 10 grams of it. That’s a bit hard to accomplish with any drink. You’d need to drink at least 30 cups of coffee to get into the true red zone of a caffeine overdose.

At any rate, the FDA recommends keeping your caffeine consumption to around 400 mg or less per day. With regular coffee, that could be about four to five cups.

With a highly caffeinated brew, that might be two cups…or a quarter of a cup.

If you’re not sure how much caffeine you can handle, you might want to start with larger quantities of coffee that has a regular amount of caffeine before testing out these high-caffeine coffee versions.

On the other hand, some coffee drinkers find that caffeine doesn’t affect them, and they’re fine consuming several cups of even the highest-octane mug of coffee.

How Strong Is Drip Coffee? 

Drip coffee is stronger than coffees that are made in a faster brewing process. This is because more caffeine is extracted when coffee beans stay in contact with water for a longer amount of time. It’s simple science.

When you brew espresso, the water is in contact with the ground beans for just 25-35 seconds. In that brief period, less caffeine is extracted.

For drip coffee, the full brewing process can take as much as 4 minutes. That extended extraction time means more caffeine in the brew.

While espresso seems quite concentrated, the caffeine levels aren’t higher. That same caffeine math also applies to pod-type brewers such as K-Cups and Nespresso pods.

Wrapping Up

If you’re after the strongest coffee with the highest caffeine content on the planet, the hands-down winner is Devil Mountain Black Label Coffee.

Brew it in a slow brewing process, and you’ll be getting into dangerously elevated levels of caffeine.

If you want a caffeinated coffee without going to extremes, Death Wish Coffee Co has one of the most popular coffees that combines a decent 728 mg of caffeine per mug with the pleasant natural tastes of cherry and chocolate.