How much coffee for a party
Coffee goes stale on the warmer, so a long party is brewed in rounds instead of all at once. Enter your guests, how many hours the party runs and the time of day. The result is gallons and pounds of grounds for each round, plus the urn size that holds it. For a fixed guest count and a single brew, see how much coffee for 50 people.
Plan your party
36 of 60 guests drink coffee, 2 rounds over 3 hours. About 1.9 lb of ground coffee per round and 7.4 gal / 3.8 lb for the whole party, brewed at 1:16.
| Per round | Water | Grounds | Urn that holds it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | 2.5 gal | 592 g (1.3 lb) | 80-cup |
| Decaf | 1.2 gal | 284 g (0.6 lb) | 40-cup |
Urn sizes come from the same table as the coffee urn page. Small amounts fit a 12-cup drip machine or a thermal carafe instead.
Examples at 33% decaf
Four common events, so you can compare before you enter your own numbers. A Thanksgiving crowd that lingers for five hours needs four rounds, which is why the total is larger than the per-round amount suggests.
| Event | Per round | Whole party |
|---|---|---|
| Holiday brunch 25 guests, 3 h, morning |
1.6 gal 0.9 lb |
3.2 gal 1.8 lb, 2 rounds |
| Thanksgiving crowd 30 guests, 5 h, afternoon |
1.3 gal 0.7 lb |
5.2 gal 2.8 lb, 4 rounds |
| Wedding reception 100 guests, 4 h, evening |
4.1 gal 2.1 lb |
12.3 gal 6.3 lb, 3 rounds |
| Office open house 50 guests, 2 h, afternoon |
2.1 gal 1.1 lb |
4.2 gal 2.2 lb, 2 rounds |
How the numbers work
The guest shares come from the event planning guide on Cvent's blog. These are its words:
- "One gallon of coffee yields about 10 mugs."
- "In the morning, you'll usually find that about 60% of your group will drink at least one mug of the above. In the afternoon, this drops to around 40%."
- "Two-thirds of the group, both in the morning and in the afternoon, will prefer regular coffee versus decaf or tea."
- "Coffee stays hot and fresh for about an hour and a half."
Everything else is my own assumption, so change the inputs if your crowd differs:
- A round is 1.5 hours. I brew a fresh batch for every 1.5 hours of the party, rounded up.
- One mug per drinker per round. A mug is 12.8 fl oz, which is one gallon divided by Cvent's 10 mugs. Cvent says "at least one mug", so a party with heavy drinkers needs more.
- Evening uses the afternoon's 40%. Cvent gives no evening figure. If alcohol is the main drink, use fewer.
- Decaf defaults to 33%. That is the other third of Cvent's two-thirds, but its third also includes tea drinkers, so decaf alone is often less. Set it to 10 or 15 if your guests rarely ask for it.
- 1:16 by weight, the same ratio as the 50 people page. Pounds are of ground coffee, grams in the table are for a scale.
Brunch, Thanksgiving and long events
A holiday brunch is the case where the morning share matters most. With 25 guests and 60% drinkers, you pour about 15 mugs per round, which is about 190 oz, or three to four 12-cup drip batches. An urn or a few thermal carafes is easier. Thanksgiving is different: people arrive and eat over several hours, then drink coffee with pie. Count the hours from when the first guest sits down to dessert.
Brew the second round about an hour into the first, so the new pot is ready as the old one runs low. I would pour leftovers into a thermal carafe only if they are under an hour old. Anything that sat on a hot plate for the full 1.5 hours is better poured out.
If guests ask for decaf, keep it in its own carafe and label it. A small decaf batch brewed in a drip machine works well. The decaf coffee ratio page covers how to dose it.
Own an urn? The coffee urn page lists the manufacturer's grounds amounts per size, which are usually lighter than 1:16.