Same caffeine as the darker roasts
Blonde Roast, sold under the name Sunsera, is Starbucks’ lightest-roasted brewed coffee. Its caffeine range is identical, size for size, to Pike Place Roast and Starbucks’ dark roast: 155 to 195 mg in a Short, 235 to 290 mg in a Tall, 315 to 390 mg in a Grande, and 390 to 490 mg in a Venti. A Grande is more than three times an 8 oz cup of drip coffee at USDA’s reference strength (95 mg).
Roast colour doesn’t track caffeine
The common belief that a lighter roast is more caffeinated, or that a dark roast is, doesn’t hold up against Starbucks’ own numbers: all three brewed roasts currently publish the same range at every size. Roasting time changes flavour far more than it changes caffeine content, so choosing blonde over Pike Place or dark is a matter of taste, not dose.
Where it meets the daily limit
The FDA cites 400 mg a day as not generally associated with negative effects in healthy adults, and a Venti at the top of its range, 490 mg, is over that on its own. The single-dose picture is stricter still: EFSA assessed single doses up to 200 mg as not raising safety concerns, and every size from Tall up exceeds that. In pregnancy, where ACOG uses a 200 mg daily ceiling, a Short comes close to using the whole allowance on its own.
A Caffè Misto, half brewed coffee and half steamed milk, is the lower-caffeine way to get the same roast: 150 mg in a Grande, less than half the brewed cup.