A Certificate of Analysis, or COA, is the document a third-party laboratory issues after testing a product batch. It’s the single most important piece of evidence you can check before buying any cannabis vape product — yet most people either skip it entirely or don’t know what the numbers on it actually mean. This guide walks through exactly what’s being measured, why each test matters, and how to read our published results on the Lab Results page.

Why Third-Party Testing Matters

“Third-party” is the key phrase. A manufacturer testing its own product in-house has an obvious incentive problem — there’s no independent verification that results are accurate. Third-party laboratories have no financial stake in whether a batch passes or fails, which is what makes their results meaningful. Reputable vape and cannabis brands submit every batch to accredited independent labs rather than relying on internal quality control alone.

Potency Testing: THC and Cannabinoid Percentages

Potency testing measures the concentration of cannabinoids — primarily THC, but often CBD and minor cannabinoids too — present in the product. This is typically measured using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), a standard analytical technique capable of precisely separating and quantifying individual compounds in a mixture. The result is expressed as a percentage of total product weight or volume.

Why it matters: potency testing confirms that what’s on the label matches what’s actually in the product. Without independent verification, there’s no way to know if a “35% THC” claim is accurate or simply a marketing number.

Pesticide Screening

Cannabis is a bioaccumulator — it readily absorbs whatever is present in its growing environment, including pesticides used during cultivation. Comprehensive pesticide screening tests for dozens of specific compounds (commonly 60+ in thorough panels) known to be harmful when inhaled, even at concentrations that might be considered acceptable for ingestion. This is one of the most safety-critical tests in the entire COA, because pesticide residues that are dangerous when vaporised may not show up as a concern in food-safety-oriented testing frameworks.

Heavy Metal Testing

Heavy metals — lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium in particular — are tested because cannabis, like many agricultural crops, can absorb these elements from contaminated soil or water. Heavy metal exposure through inhalation is a serious health concern even at low concentrations, which is why COAs report results against strict maximum thresholds, typically expressed in parts per million or parts per billion. A passing result means levels are below the detection or safety threshold set by the testing standard being applied.

Residual Solvent Testing

Most cannabis extraction methods use solvents (such as butane, propane, or ethanol) at some stage of the process. Properly executed extraction removes these solvents almost entirely through purging, but residual solvent testing verifies that no unsafe trace amounts remain in the final product. This test is particularly relevant for cartridge and disposable products, where any residual solvent would be inhaled directly.

Terpene Profile Analysis

Beyond safety testing, many COAs — including ours — include a full terpene profile breakdown. This identifies which aromatic compounds are present and in what concentration, which is what actually determines a strain’s flavour and aroma character. This is especially relevant for live resin products like our Terpwoods line, where the terpene profile is a major part of the product’s value proposition.

How to Read a Batch Number

Every Dabwood product batch is assigned a unique batch number (formatted like DW2026-0847) that corresponds directly to a specific published COA. This traceability means you can verify that the exact unit you purchased matches a specific, published, third-party-verified test result — not just a general “our products are tested” claim without evidence.

What a “Passed” Result Actually Certifies

Test Category	What “Passed” Means
Potency	Cannabinoid content matches labelled claims within acceptable tolerance
Pesticides	All screened compounds below detection or safety threshold
Heavy Metals	Lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium below safety threshold
Residual Solvents	No unsafe solvent residue detected from extraction process

Red Flags to Watch For When Buying Elsewhere

• No COA available at all, or a COA that can’t be linked to a specific batch number on your product.
• A COA that only reports potency and omits pesticide, heavy metal, or solvent testing entirely.
• Testing performed by an in-house or affiliated lab rather than an independent third party.
• A COA with a date far removed from when the product was manufactured or purchased.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I see Dabwood’s lab results?

All current batch results are published on our Lab Results page, including potency, purity, pesticide screening, and terpene data.

What lab performs your testing?

We work with independent, accredited third-party laboratories for every batch — no in-house-only testing is used for compliance or safety claims.

Does every single unit get tested, or just a sample?

Testing is performed on representative samples from each production batch, which is the standard, scientifically valid approach used across the tested-goods industry — testing every individual unit isn’t practical or necessary when a batch is produced under consistent conditions.

What if a batch fails testing?

Any batch that fails third-party testing is not released for sale. Only passed, verified batches reach our shop.

The History of Cannabis Testing Standards

Third-party cannabis and vape testing has evolved considerably as the broader industry has matured. Early in the industry’s development, testing standards varied enormously between labs and regions, with little consistency in what compounds were screened or what thresholds counted as “passing.” Over time, more standardised testing panels have emerged, often modelled on frameworks used in adjacent industries like food safety and pharmaceutical quality control, bringing greater consistency to what a COA actually certifies from one lab to another.

How Sample Collection Works

Representative sampling is a well-established statistical practice used across many tested-goods industries, not unique to cannabis. When a production batch is completed, a portion is set aside according to a defined sampling protocol — often randomised across different points in the batch to avoid bias — and sent to the testing laboratory. This approach is scientifically sound because a properly manufactured batch, produced under consistent conditions, should be chemically uniform throughout; testing a representative sample provides statistically valid confidence about the entire batch without requiring the impractical step of testing every single unit.

Understanding Detection Limits and Thresholds

When a COA reports a result as “non-detect” or “below threshold” for something like a specific pesticide or heavy metal, this doesn’t necessarily mean zero amount is present — it means the concentration, if any, is below the laboratory’s detection capability or below the safety threshold defined by the applicable testing standard. This is standard practice across analytical chemistry generally; detection limits exist because there’s a practical floor to how precisely any instrument can measure trace concentrations, and thresholds are set well below levels considered to pose any health risk.

Why Testing Panels Differ Between Labs and Regions

Not all testing panels are created equal. Some labs test for a narrower range of pesticides or skip residual solvent testing entirely, particularly in regions with less mature regulatory frameworks around cannabis testing. This is exactly why the specific lab a brand works with matters — a comprehensive panel testing 60+ pesticides provides meaningfully more assurance than a minimal panel testing a handful of the most common compounds. When evaluating any brand’s lab testing claims, it’s worth checking not just whether testing happened, but how comprehensive the actual panel was.

Chain of Custody and Batch Traceability

A robust testing programme doesn’t stop at the lab result — it requires a clear chain of custody linking a specific tested sample back to the exact production batch that reaches consumers. This is what batch numbering accomplishes: when you see a batch number like DW2026-0847 on a product and can cross-reference that exact number against a published COA, you have genuine traceability rather than a generic “our products are tested” claim that could refer to any batch, tested at any point, under any conditions.

What Happens When a Batch Fails

Batch failure isn’t a hypothetical scenario in cannabis testing — it happens across the industry, particularly for pesticide and heavy metal contamination that can originate from cultivation conditions outside a processor’s direct control. A robust quality programme treats failed batches as a hard stop: the batch doesn’t reach consumers, full stop, regardless of the cost of the lost production. This is a meaningfully different approach from operations that might blend a failed batch with passing material to bring average results within an acceptable range — a practice that undermines the entire purpose of testing in the first place.

Reading Terpene Percentages in a Full Profile

A comprehensive terpene report lists each detected terpene individually with its percentage of total product weight, rather than a single blended “terpene content” figure. Dominant terpenes in any given strain typically account for the bulk of the aroma and flavour character, while minor terpenes present in smaller percentages contribute more subtle notes. Comparing terpene profiles between different strains side by side is one of the most reliable ways to predict how similar or different two products will actually taste and feel, independent of their THC percentage.

The Economics of Comprehensive Testing

Comprehensive lab testing across a full panel of pesticides, heavy metals, residual solvents, and cannabinoid content represents a genuine, ongoing operational cost for any brand committed to it — testing isn’t a one-time certification but an expense incurred for every single production batch, indefinitely. This cost structure is exactly why some lower-cost or less scrupulous operations in the broader market cut corners on testing comprehensiveness or frequency; thorough testing is expensive to maintain consistently, which is part of why verifying a brand’s actual testing practices, rather than assuming based on marketing claims, matters so much.

International Variation in Testing Requirements

Testing requirements and standards vary considerably across different countries and regions with legal cannabis frameworks, with some jurisdictions mandating specific testing panels by law and others leaving testing scope largely to individual operators’ discretion. Because we serve customers across many different countries with varying local regulatory frameworks, we apply a consistent, comprehensive testing standard across our entire catalogue regardless of destination market, rather than varying testing rigor by region.

How to Verify a Lab’s Accreditation

Reputable third-party testing laboratories typically hold recognised accreditation from relevant standards bodies, which independently verifies that the lab’s own equipment, personnel, and procedures meet defined quality standards for the type of testing being performed. This creates a second layer of independent verification — the lab verifies the product, and an accreditation body verifies the lab — providing meaningfully stronger assurance than a lab operating without any external accreditation oversight.

The Relationship Between Testing and Product Recalls

Robust batch-level testing is also what makes targeted recalls possible if an issue is ever identified after a batch has already reached the market — because each batch is traceable to specific test results and production records, any contamination or quality issue identified after the fact can be traced back to the specific affected batch rather than requiring a blanket recall across an entire product line. This traceability is a direct, practical benefit of the batch numbering and testing system extending beyond simple pre-sale verification.

Why We Encourage You to Actually Check the Numbers

Publishing lab results only creates value if customers actually use them. We encourage checking the specific batch number on your product against our published results, particularly if you’re trying a new product line for the first time or have any specific health-related sensitivity to particular compounds. This habit — treating lab data as something to actually reference rather than a box-ticking exercise — is exactly the kind of informed consumer behaviour that drives higher standards across the industry more broadly over time.

How Testing Frequency Affects Consumer Confidence

Batch-by-batch testing, applied consistently to every production run rather than periodic spot-checks across a product line, is what allows a brand to make confident, specific claims about any individual unit a customer purchases. Periodic or sample-based testing across only some batches leaves gaps in the traceability chain, meaning a customer buying a batch that happened not to be tested has no direct evidence behind whatever general claims the brand makes about its product line as a whole.

The Value of Publishing Full Reports, Not Just Pass/Fail Summaries

Some brands that do conduct testing only publish a simplified “passed” indicator rather than the full underlying data. Publishing complete, detailed results — exact percentages, specific compounds tested, and precise thresholds used — gives customers meaningfully more ability to evaluate a product independently, rather than simply trusting a binary pass/fail claim without visibility into the underlying data supporting it.

How This Knowledge Empowers You as a Consumer

Understanding what a COA actually certifies — and what it doesn’t — puts you in a stronger position as a consumer across the entire cannabis vape market, not just when shopping with us specifically. Applying this same scrutiny to any brand’s testing claims, regardless of where you shop, is a genuinely valuable habit for protecting your own safety and ensuring you get what you’re actually paying for.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Testing Transparency

As the legal cannabis and vape industry continues maturing globally, we expect testing transparency to become an increasingly standard consumer expectation rather than a differentiating feature only offered by a handful of brands. We view our current comprehensive testing and transparent publication practices as a baseline we intend to maintain and build on, not a temporary competitive advantage to eventually scale back once transparency becomes more universally expected across the market.

How to Approach a Lab Report as a First-Time Reader

If you’re looking at a COA for the first time and feel a bit overwhelmed by the format, focus first on the pass/fail status for pesticides, heavy metals, and residual solvents, since these are the safety-critical categories. Once you’re comfortable there, move on to the potency and terpene breakdown, which affects your experience more than your safety. Over a few reports, the format becomes much easier to parse quickly, and you’ll develop a sense of what to look for at a glance.

Why We Consider This Level of Detail Worth Providing

Some brands simplify their public-facing testing information to a basic “lab tested” badge without further detail, assuming most customers won’t dig deeper anyway. We’ve taken the opposite approach, publishing full batch-specific detail because we believe customers who want to verify what they’re buying should have every tool available to do so, not a simplified summary that requires trusting our word without underlying evidence.

A Glossary of Common Terms on a COA

Certificate of Analysis documents use specific terminology that can be confusing without context. “LOD” (Limit of Detection) refers to the smallest concentration of a compound a testing instrument can reliably identify. “LOQ” (Limit of Quantification) is the smallest concentration that can be reliably measured with precision, which is typically higher than the LOD. “ND” or “Non-Detect” means the compound wasn’t found above the LOD. Understanding these terms helps you interpret a report accurately rather than misreading a “non-detect” result as somehow less rigorous than a specific numerical value.

Why Independent Accreditation Bodies Matter

Accreditation bodies that certify testing laboratories typically require regular audits, proficiency testing, and strict documentation standards before granting and maintaining accreditation status. This creates ongoing accountability for the lab itself, beyond the one-time credential — a lab that loses accreditation due to failing ongoing audits is no longer considered a credible source of testing data, which is why working exclusively with currently accredited labs matters for maintaining testing credibility over time, not just at a single point when a lab was first accredited.