Does herbal tea have caffeine?

Does chamomile tea have caffeine?

No, by every source we read. Chamomile is a flower, not the tea plant that black, green and white tea come from. USDA lists brewed chamomile at 0 mg per 100 g. Celestial Seasonings’ Chamomile reads 0 mg, Yogi labels its Comforting Chamomile caffeine free, and Bigelow says its herbal teas have 0 mg per 8 oz cup. A 2008 lab study of brewed commercial teas found no caffeine in the herbal ones.

USDA's reference table (SR Legacy) lists brewed chamomile tea and brewed herbal tea other than chamomile at 0 mg of caffeine per 100 g. Each zero rests on 1 data point, and both nutrient values were last updated on 5/1/1986. Brewed hibiscus tea is also listed at 0 mg per 100 g, but marked “Assumed zero”, with 0 data points: an assumption, not a measurement. 479480481

Now look at what holds the government’s zero up. Chamomile’s rests on 1 data point, and the value was last updated on May 1, 1986. Herbal tea other than chamomile is the same, 1 data point, same date. Hibiscus has 0 data points: USDA marks it “Assumed zero”, which is a polite way of saying nobody measured.

None of that is a reason to think chamomile has caffeine. Nothing we read suggests the plant makes any, and the makers’ figures agree. It is a reason to know that the official zero rests on one data point, from a long time ago, and nobody has needed to add another.

The official zero for chamomile tea rests on one data point, last updated the year Top Gun came out

Do hibiscus, peppermint, rooibos and ginger tea have caffeine?

Plain, no. Under a brand name, read the ingredients. Herb by herb:

• Hibiscus. Celestial’s Red Zinger, a hibiscus blend, reads 0 mg, and USDA lists brewed hibiscus at 0 mg per 100 g, assumed. Starbucks’ Passion Tango is hibiscus too, and the Starbucks article has its menu figure. Watch the name, though: Yogi’s Soothing Rose Hibiscus is built on green tea and states 12 mg, and Yerba Madre sells a Strawberry Hibiscus yerba mate that it says has about as much caffeine as a shot of espresso.
• Peppermint. Celestial Peppermint and Yogi Purely Peppermint are each one herb. Celestial’s reads 0 mg, and Yogi labels its own caffeine free. USDA has no peppermint tea of its own; we searched. Celestial’s White Chocolate Peppermint is white tea with peppermint in it and states 7 mg.
• Rooibos. A review in the research literature calls rooibos a caffeine-free tea, and Yogi labels its Chai Rooibos caffeine free. But rooibos on the list does not make the box safe: Yogi’s Vanilla Spice Perfect Energy has rooibos next to black and green tea, and states 75 mg.
• Ginger. Celestial’s Jammin’ Lemon Ginger reads 0 mg, and Yogi labels its Ginger caffeine free. USDA’s ginger tea is a zero too, but a calculated one, and USDA’s own figure for raw ginger is an assumed zero.

USDA's survey food “Tea, ginger” lists 0 mg of caffeine per 100 g. It is a recipe of 99 g of tap water and 1 g of raw ginger root, so the value is calculated from its ingredients, not measured in a cup, and USDA's own figure for raw ginger is an assumed zero. FoodData Central has no peppermint tea. Rooibos appears only as another name for the survey food “Tea, hot, herbal”, which takes its 0 mg from the brewed herbal tea record, and that survey food also lists mate tea among its names. 482483

The rule that works: the name on the front of the box is marketing, the ingredient list is the drink. If it names tea of any kind (green, black, white, oolong, puerh, hojicha, matcha) or yerba mate, there is caffeine in the cup. Starbucks’ own menu has a chamomile tea that turns out to be a green tea blend, and the Starbucks article has that number too.

Which herbal teas have caffeine?

Two kinds: blends that add real tea, and herbs that bring caffeine of their own. The first kind is the trap, because the box leads with the herb.

Yogi’s S’mores is the one that would fool me: a dessert name on a box that is hojicha and puerh, both of them tea. Celestial’s Honey Lemon Ginseng at least says green tea in its full name.

Then the herb that brings its own. Yerba mate is drunk like an herbal tea and has real caffeine: BraCaffT, a Brazilian food table, puts a gourd of hot mate at 91 mg and of cold tereré at 84 mg, for 350 ml. USDA’s survey table even lists mate tea as another name for its herbal tea, at 0 mg per 100 g, a zero that does not fit the gourd. Yerba Madre, sold by Guayakí, says one of its mate bags has about 30 mg. The gourd, refilled all afternoon, is in how much caffeine is in yerba mate.

Yerba Madre, sold by Guayakí, says each of its mate bags contains about 30 mg of caffeine, and that a 15.5 fl oz can of its Enlighten Mint delivers 150 mg; that can lists organic caffeine among its ingredients, so not all of it comes from the mate. Its Strawberry Hibiscus brewed yerba mate is described as having “about as much caffeine as a shot of espresso”, with no figure. 503504505

Enlighten Mint is the one to read twice. It is sold on peppermint, it states 150 mg a can, and organic caffeine is on its ingredient list, so the mate is not doing all of that alone.

And two drinks that are not herbal at all, whatever the café board says: chai is black tea with spices, and matcha is ground green tea. The green tea article has the numbers for the leaf behind most of these blends. Kombucha belongs on the same list: it is fermented tea, not an herbal drink.

Can herbal tea have trace caffeine?

Yes, and the example is, of all things, a sleep tea. Linden flowers are sold for bedtime, and in 2014 a Swiss lab found caffeine in them, which it had not expected.

A Swiss lab (Mathon and colleagues, 2014) found caffeine in all 11 linden (Tilia) samples it bought, a plant sold for sleep teas. Brewed as a 200 ml cup for 5 minutes, five teabags held 0.082 to 0.226 mg a cup; the other six samples were below the 0.08 mg the method can quantify. The abstract gives the top cup as 226 µg. Seven teabag samples held 56.5 to 109.8 mg per kg of dried herb; in the other four it was below the method's 40 mg per kg limit. One sample mixed linden with chamomile and orange leaves and flowers, and the authors say its caffeine could also come from the orange. 486

Keep the units straight, because they are small. The strongest cup was 0.226 mg, which the abstract writes as 226 µg: micrograms, not milligrams. 6 samples held caffeine below 0.08 mg, the least the method could put a number on.

By our arithmetic, a 200 ml cup of black tea at 40 mg holds about 180 times the caffeine of the strongest linden cup the Swiss lab measured, in the same volume of water, or 161 to 197 times within the lab's stated uncertainty, and 500 times the lab's 0.08 mg limit of quantification. 48614

So a 200 ml cup of black tea holds about 180 times as much caffeine as the strongest linden cup, by our arithmetic, or 161–197 times within the lab’s stated uncertainty. The authors add that one of their samples mixed linden with chamomile and orange leaves and flowers, and the orange may have brought its caffeine. We found no measurement we trust of caffeine in plain chamomile.

My sleep tea had caffeine in it. Not enough to notice. Enough to never trust a linden flower again

Is caffeine free the same as decaf?

No, and the labels blur it. Caffeine free, on an herbal tea, means a plant that never made any. Decaf means a tea that had caffeine and had most of it taken out. One maker shows the difference on two boxes.

Yogi labels its Comforting Chamomile “Caffeine Free”, with a caffeine amount of 0 in the page data, and its Green Tea Pure Green Decaf “Decaffeinated - 10 mg”. Neither page prints a serving beside the figure. 490493

Yogi is not the only one saying decaf is low, not zero. Bigelow says its decaffeinated teas have 1–8 mg per 8 oz cup, The Republic of Tea 2–4 mg per 6 oz, and USDA lists decaf hot black tea at 1 mg per 100 g. A lab that measured decaf teas put them all under 12 mg a serving, a ceiling, not a figure.

Celestial Seasonings' store data tags herbal teas such as Chamomile and Peppermint both “Caffeine Free” and “Decaffeinated”. Its Sleepytime Decaf Lemon Jasmine, titled a “Decaf Green Bedtime Blend”, shows 0 mg on its Caffeine Meter, with no serving stated. 502499

So one store tags a chamomile as decaffeinated, though nothing was taken out of it, and shows a decaf green tea at zero, where Yogi’s decaf green says 10 mg. If the number you want is zero, buy the herb, not the decaf. Decaf coffee works the same way, and the decaf article has its numbers.

Decaf is caffeine on a diet. Caffeine free is caffeine that never showed up

Does the FDA define “caffeine free”?

Not that we could find. We searched the whole US Code of Federal Regulations for the phrase.

A phrase search of the whole US Code of Federal Regulations for “caffeine free” on November 12, 2026 returned 1 section in the current Code, 7 CFR 210.11, USDA's rule for food sold in schools, in force since July 1, 2024, and none in Title 21, where FDA's food rules sit; the search's other results are earlier versions of the same paragraph. That rule says food and drink for elementary and middle school students “must be caffeine-free, with the exception of trace amounts of naturally occurring caffeine substances”. A search for “herbal tea” returned 0 results. A search for “decaffeinated” returns 3 sections, 21 CFR 173.255, 173.290 and 170.3: solvent rules for decaffeinated coffee and a list of food categories, none a definition. We found no FDA definition of “caffeine free” or “decaf” in the Code; that is not proof that none exists, and FDA guidance was not searched. 48548478

The only “caffeine-free” we found in federal rules is for school food, and even that allows trace amounts of naturally occurring caffeine. So, as far as we could find, on a box of tea in the US “caffeine free” is the maker’s word, and “decaf” is the maker’s word too: the Code’s 3 sections with “decaffeinated” set solvent rules and list food categories, and none defines it. That is why this page quotes the makers and not a rule.

Is herbal tea a good swap for coffee or black tea at night?

On caffeine alone, yes. A cup of plain chamomile or peppermint adds nothing to your evening by any figure on this page, a linden cup almost nothing. What matters is the cup it replaces: a 200 ml black tea is about 40 mg and a filter coffee 80 mg, and half of either is still in you about 4 hours later, longer for some people.

A single 100 mg dose of caffeine, about 1.4 mg/kg body weight for a 70 kg adult, may increase the time it takes to fall asleep and reduce sleep duration in some adults, particularly when taken close to bedtime. 2223

We say nothing here about what any herb does to sleep, or about herbs in pregnancy. That is a different question from caffeine, and this page only answers the caffeine one. For the caffeine, the full list of drinks has the rest, and the method page shows how the curve is built.