Buyer education
How to read a botanical certificate of analysis
Marketing describes what a product is supposed to be. A certificate of analysis (COA) reports what a specific batch actually is — identity, potency, and contaminant results from a laboratory. Learning to read one takes ten minutes and permanently changes how you evaluate botanical products.
The sections that matter
A meaningful botanical COA typically covers:
- Identity — confirmation that the material IS the claimed species and plant part, with the method named (microscopy, HPTLC, DNA). This is the section the species-substitution problem lives and dies on.
- Potency / marker compounds — measured concentrations of the named markers, matching any standardization claim on the label.
- Heavy metals — lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, with numeric results against stated limits.
- Microbiology — total counts plus specific pathogens (E. coli, Salmonella).
- Pesticides and residual solvents — where relevant to the crop and the extraction method.
- Batch/lot number and dates — tying THIS document to THIS product, not to the product line in general.
Red flags
- No batch number, or a batch that doesn't match the product in hand — a generic COA is a brochure.
- "Meets specification" with no numbers — results should be values against limits, not adjectives.
- No laboratory identified, or the manufacturer grading its own homework with no independent testing anywhere in the chain.
- Identity by "organoleptic" (look/smell) assessment alone on a high-substitution-risk material.
- A standardization percentage on the label that appears nowhere on the certificate.
The asking test
Reputable suppliers treat a COA request as routine — many publish them per batch. Evasion is itself a data point: in a market where identity substitution is common and testing is the only resolution, "we don't share that" answers the quality question, just not the way the seller intended.
Sources & further reading
Keep reading
Want the evidence itself?
Myto Intelligence maps 1,173 medications to 705plants, fungi & ethnobotanicals by shared mechanism — every result with an evidence tier and a citation. It teaches, compares, and cites; it never tells anyone what to take.