Half coffee, half milk, half the caffeine
A Caffè Misto is brewed coffee cut with steamed milk in roughly equal parts, Starbucks’ answer to a French-style café au lait. Starbucks lists 75 mg of caffeine in a Short or Tall, 150 mg in a Grande, and 195 mg in a Venti. Because the cup is half milk, a Grande Misto carries less than half the caffeine of a Grande Pike Place Roast (315 to 390 mg), even though both start from the same brewed coffee.
Compared to a latte
Ounce for ounce, a Misto’s caffeine is close to a Grande Caffè Latte (150 mg), even though the two drinks are built differently: a latte’s caffeine comes from two shots of espresso, a Misto’s from brewed coffee diluted with milk. The two land on the same number in a Grande mostly by coincidence of Starbucks’ recipes, not because the drinks work the same way.
Requesting decaf coffee in the mix turns a Misto into a low-caffeine drink, closer to a decaf coffee with a splash of milk.
Ordering a Misto is also a simple way to stretch a smaller amount of brewed coffee across a bigger, milkier cup without asking for a specific espresso drink by name.
Where it fits in a day
At 150 mg, a Grande Misto sits under the 200 mg single dose EFSA assessed as safe for healthy adults, and two of them, 300 mg, leave 100 mg of the 400 mg daily figure the FDA cites for healthy adults. In pregnancy, where ACOG uses a 200 mg daily ceiling, a Grande uses most of the day’s allowance on its own.