[majormajor]

Unless I'm a visiting tourist I'm likely to go back to a good coffee shop many times. Being surprised my cold brew isn't cold brew - both the caffeine content and taste are tells IMO - for one visit isn't life or death here. I just don't get it again.

[anon84873628]

Caffeine content in the cup is not a good metric. It is one of the most easily extracted compounds and is roughly equivalent across brew types. The beans themselves are a bigger variable in this regard. Even if you are using a roaster's signature blend, the bean composition of that is going to change month to month and year to year. Even beans from the same physical trees will have varying caffeine content depending on agronomic factors.

In the same cafe on the same day, the reason different drinks have noticeably different caffeine content comes down to the different doses and concentrations they end up using. E.g. 20g coffee would normally produce either a 40mL espresso or 12oz drip. So putting that 40mL espresso in a 5oz cappuccino is much more concentrated than a 8oz filter.