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Lab Testing Big Brands Vs Specialty Coffee Vs "Healthy" Coffee

2025-12-23 Entertainment
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James Hoffmann
James Hoffmann
2.5m subscribers

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Description

Thank you to Bombas for sponsoring this video! Head to https://bombas.yt.link/euSGDuj and use code jameshoffmann at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. With more talk about things like toxins and heavy metals in coffee, we decided to go shopping and do some proper testing - with interesting results! 00:00 Introduction and what is “healthy” coffee 03:05 Coffee samples we tested 04:25 Contents we tested for 05:27 Bombas And A Story About Socks 07:18 Test results: Heavy Metals 09:38 Test results: Ochratoxin 11:14 Test results: Phenolic content (CGAs) & tasting 15:08 Roast level and CGA content in coffee beans 15:55 Roast level and CGA content in brewed filter coffee 18:06 Conclusion 20:22 What are your thoughts on “healthy” coffee? My FrankenMoka video: https://youtu.be/zK0F5PqJ1Gk My Ultimate Moka Pot Technique: https://youtu.be/BfDLoIvb0w4 My Ultimate Tiramisu Recipe: https://youtu.be/o3AMALUTp8o Our new pour-over setup still life print from TensHundredsThousands: https://geni.us/THT-Still-Life Other Links: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jameshoffmann Limited Edition Merch: https://geni.us/TensHundredsThousands Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jimseven Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/jimseven My Books: How to Make The Best Coffee At Home*: https://geni.us/howtomakethebestcoffee The World Atlas of Coffee*: https://geni.us/worldatlasofcoffee The World Atlas of Coffee Audiobook*: https://bit.ly/worldatlasofcoffeeaudio The Best of Jimseven*: https://geni.us/bestofjimseven Things I use and like: My old glasses: http://bit.ly/boldlondon My new glasses (Sept 2024 onwards): https://bit.ly/thenewglasses My hair product of choice*: https://geni.us/forthehair (*Affiliate links which may earn us a commission)

Top Comments (10)

@digitalairaire 2025-12-23

Sad to learn James doesn’t approve of my new brand of dragon-free coffee

2.3k 58 replies
@sinom 2025-12-23

Good old asbestos free coffee

1.3k 8 replies
@iltifat01 2025-12-23

Let’s be real we trust Hoffman more than the influencer doc. Everyone been waiting for this to drop.

837 22 replies
@kramelbbiw 2025-12-23

18:55 "Well known YouTuber refuses to condemn cyanide-laced coffee"

720 5 replies
@namenloss 2025-12-23

Within the EU it is actually not allowed to promote a common feature as special. I.e you cannot promote your coffee as as toxin-free if all coffee is generally toxin-free

676 15 replies
@BoringExtrovert 2025-12-23

The smile as James slurps the specialty coffee 😂

506 2 replies
@critcof 2025-12-23

@James, small correction: when you report <0.005, it does not mean close to that figure but under the detection limit, which means it could also be completely absent. We do the same kind of reporting at our lab for EUDR related testing at Meise Botanic Garden

467 14 replies
@jamesverhoff1899 2025-12-24

Mr. Hoffmann, if you ever want to run these sorts of tests again please let me know. I work for an environmental firm, and we run these tests all the time. Metals, if you're curious, are ASTM 6010/6020 (depends on the precise methods the lab uses, and that's a whole thing). It will, as you say, cost a fair bit--the individual tests are only a few hundred, but with the duplicates and MS/MSDs and reports and time to run the samples, yes, it would be a bit expensive. But I would be more than happy to help you analyze coffee for anything and everything under the sun. The only tricky bit would be brewing the coffee--I'm considered fancy because I use a French press and know what a mocha pot is. But if you're willing to help with the brewing, I absolutely would be willing to help with the analysis. Let me know what you want analyzed for (pesticides, herbicides, metals, volatile and semi-volatile organics, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, PFAS/PFOS, and anything else you want), and I can give you a price. It would be a delightfully absurd combination of my love of coffee and my training as a field geologist. As an aside, if you're only getting those four metals you got screwed. Unless you're running the samples via a graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometer (which is WILDLY outdated) they ran for everything, they're only REPORTING those values. The <xxx is usually U-flagged in the USA, meaning it was below the reporting limit; I would be curious to see why the reporting limits changed. Could be for a lot of reasons, it's just me being nosy. An x-ray backscatter gun would give you these results in a few minutes, with about 20 different metals. A real lab should be able to give you a LOT more data. I'm not familiar with the "toxins" in question, but I imagine they'd be VOCs, SVOCs, or something similar. If you don't want to spend the money to get samplers to help out, please reach out to Pace Analytical or CT Laboratories. I've had good experiences with both.

363 16 replies
@pankoBreadCroisant 2025-12-23

4:45 I just want to acknowledge this. You nailed in on the head. Very few of us have the means to meaningfully investigate the unsubstantiated claims made by companies, as advertised, and it's very altruistic of you to frame it as a matter of responsibility to one's audience. In a world that's feeling like everyone's becoming more and more selfish and self-serving day by day, hearing stuff like this is a breath of freshly brewed coffee-scented air. Thank you.

115 3 replies
@lwoods507 2025-12-23

My old man loves the Tesco House Roast: after 60 years of smoking he only has 1 working tastebud, so the brutality of the Tesco Blend hits the spot 😂

86 1 replies

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