Introduction: The volatile coffee components may have positive effects on memory, as proved with coffee intake. Objective: To describe the effect of volatile coffee components on short and long term memory after sleep deprivation. Methods: In all, 38 college students (66% female with mean age 20 ± 2 years), divided into two treatment groups (Tx1 = 12 subjects without sleep deprivation to measure short-term memory, Tx2 = 13 subjects with sleep deprivation to measure long-term memory) and a control group (n = 13). Three subtests of the NEUROPSI battery; attention and memory were used. Results: In the word list recall test, the second (p = 0.044) and third trial (p = 0.044) showed differences in which Tx1 group (second trial M =12.91 ± 1.5, third trial M = 13.83± 1.1) recalled more words than the control group (second trial M=11.76 ± 1.5, third trial M =12.53 ± 1.5), likewise, they showed a higher score (p = 0.023) in the ReyOsterrieth figure test (Tx1 = 31.27 ± 3.52 vs Control =26.61 ± 5.6). No differences were found in long-term memory. Conclusions: The volatile components of coffee improve verbal and visuospatial short-term memory, but not long-term memory after sleep deprivation.