A shot with a dash of milk
“Macchiato” means stained: a shot of espresso marked with a small amount of foamed milk, served in a 2 oz cup. USDA’s figure for this style is 142 mg of caffeine per 100 g, which works out to about 85 mg in a typical 60 g cup, close to a single shot of espresso on its own (63 mg by USDA’s separate measurement, 75 mg for Starbucks’ version).
That makes a macchiato one of the more concentrated ways to drink coffee. It carries almost as much caffeine as a full 8 oz mug of drip coffee (95 mg), in about a quarter of the volume.
Not the same drink at every counter
The name covers two different drinks. A traditional or “espresso” macchiato, the one this page measures, is mostly espresso. Starbucks’ own Espresso Macchiato follows that pattern too, at 75 mg for a single shot. Its better-known Caramel Macchiato, by contrast, is built more like a latte with the espresso poured on top, and carries 150 mg in a Grande, nearly double. Ordering “a macchiato” gets different drinks in different places, so check which one is meant.
Where it fits in a day
At 85 mg, a traditional macchiato sits comfortably under the 200 mg single dose EFSA assessed as safe for healthy adults, and four of them, 340 mg, would still leave room under the 400 mg daily figure the FDA cites. In pregnancy, where ACOG uses a 200 mg daily ceiling, two cups already use most of that allowance.