What is the chemical formula for caffeine?

The chemical formula for caffeine is C8H10N4O2.

This formula states that one caffeine molecule contains 8 carbon atoms, 10 hydrogen atoms, 4 nitrogen atoms, and 2 oxygen atoms. Caffeine is a bitter, white crystalline alkaloid in the methylxanthine family and is found naturally in coffee, tea, cacao, guarana, and several other plants.

Caffeine works primarily as a stimulant by blocking adenosine receptors in the nervous system. Tea and coffee contain the same compound, despite older terminology that sometimes called tea’s caffeine “theine.” Chemists established that theine and caffeine were identical in the nineteenth century.

Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge first isolated caffeine in 1819. In 1895, Hermann Emil Fischer completed its first total synthesis, and his work on caffeine’s structure formed part of the research recognized by the 1902 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The formula is often confused with a structural formula, which shows how the atoms are bonded rather than merely counting them.