TestMyKratom

In July 2024, I started anonymously buying kratom products, sending them to independent labs, and publishing the results for free. Now the team has grown, and we’re still doing exactly that, which frankly surprises me as much as anyone. To celebrate, we’re releasing something new: the 25mg Big Apple 7-OH tablet. There’s a twist with the milligrams, but I’ll get to that later.

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We Didn’t Think We’d Make It This Far

Honest admission: for most of TMK’s life, I assumed we wouldn’t see year two. Anonymous testing is expensive. Labs don’t work for free, and neither does buying every product we test at retail like a regular customer. The only reason the lights are still on is that this community kept them on. You bought tabs, shared our results, sent us tips on what to test next, and told your friends. From the bottom of my heart: thank you!

The Most Memorable Moments of the 7-OH Era

A lot can happen in two years, and in the 7-OH world two years is an eternity. Before we unveil our newest flavor, here are a few of the moments that defined these past couple years.

6. Shout Out to the Fallen Soldiers

The brands that succeed today, including us, learned from the ones that came before. Some of them were dishonest. More than a few threatened to sue TestMyKratom at one point or another. We still want to pay homage. So shout out to everyone who at some point enjoyed tablets from Perks, Hydroxie, Press’d, 7even, 7Labs, 7Tabs, EDP, Overseas Organix, 7ohBlack, 7 O’Heaven, 7OMEGAZ, Sub7Ohmz, 7rx, VII, Clandestine, and Hyku, to name a few. Gone but not forgotten.

5. The Fall of 7ohBlack and Overseas Organix

These were both sad, for very different reasons. These were two of the more honest brands in the space. When they got underdosed product, they pulled it instead of continuing to push it, and the founding teams of both were great to work with. The 7ohBlack story has been well documented on our podcast, so we won’t rehash it here. But as shocked as we all were to see 7ohBlack suddenly disappear, we were way more surprised to see Overseas Organix collapse in spectacular fashion amid allegations of firearms, explosives, and 7-OH in a private storage locker in Florida.

4. Champs 2024: The Wild West in a Vegas Convention Hall

Champs is a smoke shop trade show that happens in Las Vegas every year, and in 2024 it’s where 7-OH was born. 7OHMZ debuted their 14mg OG tablet. Hydroxie had a booth but no product, taking preorders while quietly trying to find someone who would sell them 7-OH. And then there was Perks. All of their branding mimicked Percocet, down to tablets with the same light blue color and shape as Percocet pills. The backlash was so bad they rebranded shortly after, becoming the brand we all know as Press’d.

I remember talking to the Perks guys at their booth. They told me they were drowning in demand and that I’d need to put in a $100,000 order, fully prepaid, just to get a spot in line. A few hours later I walked by the 7OHMZ booth and asked if they were worried about Press’d. Their answer: the CEO of Press’d was blowing up their phone at that very moment, begging to buy tablets because his connect fell through. Everyone was lying. Nobody was following through on anything. And as much as I believed this molecule could change the world, I also worried that in its current state, with those players, it would be banned within a year. That show is where I decided I wanted to try to do something to help.

3. 7OHMZ: Last Man Standing

When we launched TestMyKratom, the four brands we tested first were 7OHMZ, Press’d, Hydroxie, and EDP. Even then, 7OHMZ was consistently the only brand that actually put in their tabs what the label claimed. To their credit, they still do. We think that’s a big part of why, of the original big four, they’re the only one still alive.

EDP went under once it became clear 7-OH isn’t stable in drink shots. They never seriously entered the tablet game, so they died alongside the drink market. Press’d and Hydroxie lasted much longer but met similar ends. Price competition hurt, but the bigger problem was that neither controlled their own manufacturing. 7OHMZ was the only one of the four pressing their own tabs. Back then, the few manufacturers that existed controlled pricing and kept profits that today go to brands. For context, most brands today buy 7-OH for 2.5 to 3.5 cents/mg. In the early days you couldn’t get tabs pressed for under 5 cents/mg. Since most sales ran through smoke shops, whatever margin survived manufacturing got split again with distributors and shop owners.

2. 7Box: The Hail Mary That Kept the Lights On

Not many people know how close we came to shutting down. Testing doesn’t pay for itself, and at one point the money simply wasn’t there. So we launched 7Box as a Hail Mary; if 7Box couldn’t generate enough revenue to cover testing, TMK was done.

It worked. It wasn’t sustainable long term but it kept the lights on, and it gave us the confidence we needed to eventually manufacture our own tabs. Thank you to everyone who bought that first 7Box. And shout out to the brands that took a chance on us and generously donated all the products that made 7Box possible: 7ohBlack, Overseas Organix, Kratom Distro, Kratom Heads, Lucid, Real Botanicals, 7OHMZ, and BKC.

1. The Ice Cream Cone That Sent Lawyers After Us

For our 50th blog post, we celebrated a milestone we never expected: our first Cease and Desist. EatOhmz sent it, claiming false advertising and disparagement, after we published a lab result showing their 18mg tablets contained 0.1mg of 7-OH. Not a typo. The label promised 18mg and the lab found about half a percent of that. The good news is, those tabs will still be compliant if 7-OH gets scheduled!

The Cease & Desist backfired beautifully. Reddit noticed a brand was going after the testing site, and suddenly a lot more people were talking about us. The Streisand Effect, live and online. And we’d be lying if we said the funniest part wasn’t the product itself. This is the same brand that released a 7-OH ice cream cone. An ice cream cone. I still laugh when I think about it.

Why a Tab Named After New York

That’s the history. Now for the celebration, which starts somewhere you might not expect: Madison Square Garden.

If you watched the NBA Finals last month, you saw the Knicks win their first championship since 1973. Jalen Brunson put up 45 points in the closeout game, 15 of them in the final eight minutes, and took home Finals MVP. What stuck with us wasn’t the trophy. It was that when the game got tight, he gave a little extra.

The celebrations in New York went on for days. Watching a fanbase that waited 53 years finally get their moment, right as we hit our own milestone, felt like a sign. So the Big Apple is our tribute: to the Knicks, to New York City, and to giving a little extra when it counts.

A Little Extra

So, about that twist. Every Big Apple tab labeled 25mg actually contains 28mg of 7-hydroxymitragynine, verified by third party lab testing. The COA is published on the product page like always. If Jalen Brunson can give a little extra, so can we.

We’ve spent two years testing products where the label and the contents don’t match. Usually the mismatch goes the other direction. So yes, we get the irony of the label police releasing a tab that’s off-label on purpose. The difference is you’re reading about it in our announcement post, with lab results attached.

Practical note: 28mg is 12% more than 25mg. If you’re calibrated to 25mg tabs, account for that. Know your tolerance and dose like the label says 28, because it does, just not on the front.

Today We Celebrate. Tomorrow We Fight.

We have a lot to say about where 7-OH is headed, and we’re saying it in another post later this week. Today isn’t for that. Today we’re two years old, New York is champion, and there’s a new tab on the shelf.

TMK 25mg Big Apple tabs

Potency claim: 25mg per tablet

Lab Result: 28.23mg per tablet

Grade: B

TMK 25mg Big Apple tabs backed up their 7-OH claim. Each tablet contained 28.23mg of 7-OH, which was 12% stronger than its 25mg claim. The reason this product did not receive an A rating is that its potency differed significantly from its advertised potency.

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Thank you as always for your support! We hope you’ll celebrate 2 years with us.

- Jay